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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





THK AUTHOR'S STUDY IN SOI^lTUDE). 



MYSTERY 



The Golden Cloth 



THE RIVEN VEIL 



JASPER SEAiSTON HUGHES 



CHICAGO 

Published by the Author 
1901 




THE LJBRARY OF 
CC^GfTESS, 

Two Co*^!6s Received 

DEC. 30 1901 

y-^COPV RIGHT ENTRY 
LASS<^KXa NO. 
^L O C> 2- 
COPY J. 



COPYRIGHT 

By jasper S HUGHES 
1901. 



^ PREFACE. 

^' "Whence comes it that the knowledge that might advance us, the 

■>* thought that might save us, is transferred from one generation to 
^ another, as barren and dead as a stone, till some one seizes it and 
strikes it into fire?" — Adolph Harnack. 

My first writing about John dealt with his vision only 
and had no preface and the mere rudiment of a setting. 

The name of my book, ^^Mystery of the Golden Cloth/' 
was, I now confess, chosen to escape the prejudice and cyni- 
cism against all attempts to interpret ^^the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His ser- 
vants." I had no desire to have either the appearance of 
following the current religious fiction nor of testing an hy- 
pothesis, nor to be merely clever, but to give a serious and 
truthful exposition of the form and substance of the book 
which had been so long a mystery. The scholastical interpre- 
tations were pronounced failures and to the credit at least 
of evangelical scholarship the failures were frankly con- 
fessed, from Luther down, so that the vision remained sealed 
— '^dead as a stone ready to be struck into fire." 

This book was eleven hundred years finding its way into 
the accepted "holy scriptures" and has not yet found its 
way to an equal place with the other books in our colleges, 
our pulpits or our press and is scarcely regarded as author- 
ity in religious controversy, and is quite generally tabooed, 
as a sphinx. In this respect I had almost clear sailing from 
the reefs of controversial prejudice and for all I chose an 
uninforming title and left many minor defects to be righted, 



VI PREFACE. 

the approval of the evangelical press and the applause of my 
own conscience have brought a grateful reward. 

I have the satisfaction to believe the vision VN^ill never again 
fall back upon its old plane and that no interpretation will 
find currency that does not take into account the facts my 
work has set forth for the first time. 

The Kevelation lays heavier claim upon our attention than 
any other and it is a paradox that the one book of the E"ew 
Testament that claims most for itself is least regarded. 
John's credit and place in the Christian economy must re- 
main in suspense till that book is understood. 

'No other book so often appeals '^to him that hath an ear 
to hear" and to ^^him that hath wisdom" to consider. 

It came from the ^^bosom disciple," grown old in the richest 
experience that had ever fallen to the lot of any single man 
since the world began. 

It has nothing of the vagrant or go lucky or sophomoric 
about it but is the ripe fruit of meditation, the valedictory 
of the sacred laureate, guided by infinite wisdom. The ob- 
stacle to its general acceptance and understanding is the state 
of mind which we bring to its study. This is ^Hhe veil over 
our eyes." 

It is with the hope of bringing the great vision into a 

better appreciation that the third edition, revised, is now 

issued with an introduction. With a better knowledge of its 

literary formation and of the genius of its movement we 

come to feel its coherent power. The orderly array of its 

facts and phenomena fully accounted for is all that science 

or philosophy can require at our hands. 

The Authoe. 



INTRODUCTION 



JOHK 



John means the gracious gift of God. The first was the 
prophet Baptist of the wilderness, so named bv the Holy 
Spirit through his father, the dumb priest, who wrote it on a 
tablet and his tongue was loosed : Son of Zechariah and Eliz- 
abeth, designated of God to be forerunner of Messiah, as 
the second was to follow after. By himself styled '^^the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness," by Christ called 
^^Elijah," the mighty prophet of the Lord, by Herod believed 
to have risen from the dead, whence he had sent him with the 
ax for rebuking his sin; by the people received as a mes- 
senger from God and ajoproved as the ^^greatest born of 
women," but ^^less than the least in the kingdom of heaven." 

Another John "in the kingdom and patience and tribula- 
tion of Jesus Christ," son of Zebedee and Salome, whose 
early training was with the hairy prophet of the wilder- 
ness and was transferred to the greater school of Christ. 

This is our Boanerges, son of thunder, and the cleverest 
man of the company, marked for destiny but still regarded in 
our time as neither of these, but a weakling and mystic, but 
the time is at hand Avhen his truth of "seven trumpets" and 
his "seven voices of thunder and his seven vials of wrath 
shall be struck into fire." John came from the hill country, 
"beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles," where "the people 



Vll 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

sat in darkness/' the home of the terrible Maccabees, people 
whose blood "Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices." Out 
of snch came this son of thunder and bore in himself the 
stamp of its topography. 

His ambition for place and preferment in the cabinet of 
his Lord and his repulse by the Master are related by 
Matthew. His avengeful turn in asking that fire might come 
down from heaven and consume the unfriendly Samaritans 
and his rebuke for such '^manner of spirit" are recorded by 
Luke. His jealous disposition in forbidding one from cast- 
ing out devils "because he followed not with us" and his Mas- 
ter's reproof for the same are related by Mark. 

These facts about John deny the current notion that he 
was effeminate and assert a masculine temper. 

Three times reproved by his Master and buffeted and 
chastened by "the world that lieth in darkness under the 
wicked one" for about fifty years, he was prepared to write. 
Beneath his rough exterior there was a tender heart and 
an understanding mind to discern the deep things of Christ. 
The first portrait of John is that given by his fellow disciples, 
showing his hasty, jealous and ambitious temper. The sec- 
ond is that inferred from his own writings, where we know 
him as the "bosom disciple," the "apostle of love," the inti- 
mate of Christ and the guardian of his mother. He gave us 
the best portrait of himself in giving us the best of Christ. 

The greater middle period of formation and character 
building is lost to history. There are nearly fifty silent 
years of ominous observation and of meditation, dwelling 
with Mary, listening to his brother James and to Peter and 
to Paul, waiting for the summons to speak ; then in orchestral 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

tones like thunders he breaks forth into myriad-voiced revela- 
tions. 

The first John heralded Chist's coming to Israel, the sec- 
ond His coming ''in the clouds of heaven when every eye 
shall see him and they that pierced him." The first prom- 
ised deliverance to Israel, the second a kingdom for all na- 
tions. The first was not fit to stoop down and loose His 
shoe, the second laid his head upon His bosom at supper and 
heard His heart-beats. 

From among the disciples who followed Christ He selected 
a band called apostles and inside this circle there was an 
inner circle, Peter, James and John, separated from the 
rest as witnesses of His transfiguration on the Mount and 
of His sufferings in the garden. 

Of this first inner group Paul said they seemed to be 
''pillars," and John was the innermost of these. 

But Paul succeeded to James' place and this formed a 
new inner circle of "pillars," but these were destined to a 
higher classification than "pillars": they are the vision 
APOSTLES^ and in this higher rank John was again the inner- 
most, the best informed, the last to see Christ, the last to 
be spoken to and to speak. John was a member of the 
spiritual family, son of Mary by bestowment, and brother 
to his Lord. His home in Jerusalem was the resort of the 
believers in time of trouble and a house of praise. There 
the spices for the body of Christ were prepared. There 
the women who leaned upon him at the cross and found 
him firm and faithful when the others had fled found a 
retreat. 

In him the home and the familv have found new endear- 



X INTRODUCTION. 

ments and he more than others uses family symbols to express 
divine relations. We are ^^born" into the family of faith. 
^^I speak to you, fathers." '^I speak to you, young men." 
"I speak to you, little children." ^To the elect lady 
and her children." ^^I am your brother and com- 
panion in the tribulation and patience and kingdom of 
Jesus Christ." ^'^o^v are we the sons of God." 

John became champion of the kingdom of heaven in the 
closing years of the century, as the Baptist and Christ had 
been in the earlier period, the teaching having swerved a 
little by the Jew and Gentile question. 

Christ illustrated the kingdom of heaven as growing ^^first 
the blade, then the ear, then the ripe corn in the ear," and in 
practice He himself "kept the best of the wine for the last 
of the feast." 

Peter, Paul and John, let us consider these three apart 
for we should "know such in Christ." Of such may we 
"glory," for in them we "come to visions and revelations of 
the Lord." Such were "caught up to the third heaven into 
paradise and heard unspeakable words." "Whether in the 
body or out of the body God knoweth." Whether visited 
by a widespreading sheet from heaven let down to the sup- 
pliant, "praying upon the housetop," or by a flash of light 
above the brightness of the sun from the rent sky on the road 
to Damascus, or by the descent of the Lord himself with 
an open scroll and a trumpet's voice to the exile in a cave, 
"doubtless" we should think of these above that which we 
see in others. 

First, Peter, the impetuous, had the great distinction to 
be called by special vision beyond the great commission itself 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

to preach the first to the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius. 
This high precedent he did not forget and in the crucial hour 
in the council at Jerusalem, when brought face to face with 
his peers about the Jew and Gentile question (Act. 15), 
claimed this distinction and glory and cited not the great 
commission nor his other special commission, being given 
the keys of the kingdom, but the vision as special warrant 
for his act. He said: ^^Men and brethren, you know^ how 
that a good while ago God made choice among us that the 
Gentiles by mv mouth should hear the word of the gospel 
and believe and God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them 
witness, giving them the Holj Spirit even as unto us." . . . 
"What was I that I could withstand God?" 

This sentence of Peter in favor of receiving the Gentiles 
effaced a distinction in practice which he represented and 
there Peter himself lost his pre-eminence and dropped from 
Luke's history and Paul came to the front. The moment 
Peter confessed this larger design of Christ's kingdom he 
declined and suffered eclipse, as did the Baptist when he 
bore testimony to the higher place of Christ. But the truth 
must abound, and to cover the field now opened to the Gentile 
nations Paul was raised up. But he met with opposition 
from those who too lightly regarded Peter's special vision, 
which had but little authority as against their law, and they 
persisted in forcing Paul to a defense of his apostleship. 
In that defense he cites not only the scripture and that He 
was seen after His resurrection by Peter and the twelve and 
by more than five hundred brethren at one time, but he rises 
above all these to assert the paramount authority of vision. 
He savs: "And last of all He was seen of me also as one 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

born out of due time/' thus placing the witness and authority 
of vision as high as the witness of those who companied 
with the Lord from the baptism of John till the day in 
which He was taken up." ^^Seen of me last of all" was true 
at the time spoken, but more than half a century later another 
— the reserved witness — could say, '^and last of all He was 
seen of me also as one kept by the promise of Christ to 
testify of the things which shall come to pass hereafter." 
^"^He laid His hand upon me and said, fear not, I am He 
that was dead and behold I am alive forever more and have 
the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore in a book." 
And though it buried him under two thousand years of 
obscurity and dislodged him from his true place, he was 
not ^^disobedient to the heavenly vision," did not "withstand 
God," but wrote in a book and sent to "the seven churches," 
saying, "These are the true words of God." 

In their own orders and authority consider these three: 
Peter laid the corner stone at Jerusalem and there became 
the first center of Christendom, a Christian church com- 
posed of devout Jews. 

Paul laid the corner stone at Antioch and it became the 
second center of Christendom, composed of Jews and Gen- 
tiles on such equality as staggered Peter's prejudices to 
fellowship with them, and so brought upon himself Paul's 
reprimand. 

And John, the last, laid the corner stone for the third 
center of first century Christendom at Ephesus, thirty years 
or more after Peter and Paul had been martyred — a gospel 
freed from the earlier controversies and advocating the king- 
dom of heaven worldwide and everlasting. 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

Tiiese three beginnings of Christian development taking 
form from the three vision apostles, illustrate the dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit working and dividing severally to 
every man as he will, and these three become types of the 
unfolding processes from ''the blade to the ear and from the 
ear to the ripe corn in the ear," the differences of admin- 
istration under one Lord. History repeats the order. 

The church of the first century was lost in the wilderness 
of the dark ages and when the light of modern times broke 
upon the world it found the new center of Christendom trans- 
ferred from Jerusalem to Rome. 

There it found Peter, the vice-regent of Christ, the patron 
saint, revived in his professed successor, the Pope, with his 
keys and crowns and swords, with all authority in heaven 
and on earth, claiming true succession from Peter. St. 
Peter's cathedral is his temple, the pope is St. Peter's suc- 
cessor, her manner Petrine to the core but perverted. Jeru- 
salem rises again upon the Tiber, Antioch at Wittenberg, 
and where shall the new Ephesus arise ? 

The distinctive personalities of these leaders as well as 
the distinctive stages of progress in which the apostles were 
called upon to act as leaders have left their respective color- 
ings upon the progressive ages of Christian history. In 
this respect the 'New Testament does not differ from the Old. 
Jacob and Esau each stamped their respective characteristics 
upon the succeeding centuries. Esau's hand was against 
every man and every man's hand was against him. His 
heirs are successors to his remorseless hostility, as let us 
witness the slaughters in Christian Armenia, and Jacob, 
whose ruling characteristic was that of the sharp trader, still 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

hangs his three brass balls in front of his shop in all the 
cities of the world; both are multiplied by millions, their 
minds inert and the idea of a spiritual regeneration lies 
there "^^dead as a stone." 

The limitation of mind in His disciples was the barrier 
to Christ's full teaching. ^These things said I not unto you 
at the first." ^^I have many things to say to you but you 
cannot bear them now." ^^And with many such parables 
spake He the word unto them as they were able to bear it." 

Their blindness and stumbling came from looking be- 
hind them, as happens to all sects since their day. 

Well did Isaiah say of you, '^This people have closed their 
eyes and their ears are dull of hearing and their hearts they 
have hardened." Christ was worst understood at the first. 

Peter even bloodied his sword in a carnal defense of 
Christ on occasion of his arrest and denied him at the trial, 
warming himself at the enemies' fire and stultifying his 
soul by swearing he did not know Him. 

He assumed to dictate to Christ about His death and was 
told to "get behind me, Satan." After the resurrection 
he was admonished "Satan hath desired thee that he may sift 
thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith 
fail thee not, and when thou art converted strengthen thy 
brethren." After Pentecost he pronounced the death sen- 
tence of Ananias and Saphira. Yet to Peter Chirst com- 
mitted "the keys of the kingdom" and he was first the leader 
of the apostles' band and chief speaker, and founded the 
first society of believers and carried the gospel as far as to 
Cornelius, of Csesarea, under the importunity of special 
messengers and the stress of a special vision in which a great 



INTRODUCTION. :XV 

canvas was three times lowered to him full of fowls and 
beasts and fish and accompanied by a voice which said to 
him, ^^rise Peter, slay and eat." He instructed Cornelius 
and returned to Jerusalem. 

Inexorable Judaism circumscribed his field of usefulness 
and another had to be chosen for the Gentile mission. It 
was Paul. With the fall of Jerusalem that church per- 
ished to rise again in effigy upon the banks of the Tiber and 
to become and to be to the second evangelization of the world 
what that had been to the first, the legal shell to hold the 
deeper truth till the time when it shall be ^'struck into 
fire." Peter's jDre-eminence having passed away upon his 
concession to the Gentile converts, Paul rose to the leader- 
ship of the greater movement and Luke closes his history 
of the Acts of the Apostles with Paul's arrival in Rome and 
leaves the last and greatest acts of apostles to be written in a 
book to be sent to the seven churches. 

Vision supersedes all else — supersedes law and custom 
and dogma and even the Great Commission itself. 

The visionless apostles leave no stream behind them to 
mark their ministry. The spirit speaks loudest to the 
transported mind. 

Peter said of his vision before the great council, ^What 
was I that I could withstand God ?" 

Paul said of his vision, '^At midday, O King, I saw in the 
way a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun 
shimng round about me . . . whereupon, O King Agrippa, 
I was not disobedient," and he silenced his Jewish detractors 
by asking, "Have I not seen Jesus Christ?" 

John said of his vision, ''He laid His right hand upon me 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

and said write in a book" and blessed is he that readeth and 
they that hear these Avords, and the plagues of this book upon 
him who shall ^^add to or take away from its prophecy." 

They agree, all else might be neglected but the voice, of 
the ^^eavenly vision" must be obeyed. 

Rome is Petrine in her primacy, in her authority, in her 
temper and genius. Peter's rules for electing apostles gave 
the pretext for these characteristics when he elected Matthias 
the new apostle. Those rules were : 

1. There must be twelve apostles ; eleven will not do. 

2. The disciples themselves must choose the twelfth to fill 
the place of Judas, the betrayer and suicide. 

3. It must be done by prayer and casting ballots. 

4. He must be elected from among ^Hhose who have com- 
panied with us from the baptism of John till the day he 
was taken up from us." 

Here is the text or pretext for papal ^^succession," "infal- 
libility" and "holy orders" and anathemas upon all others. 

The summons of Paul to the ministry shows how all these 
rules were superseded and that the commission to preach to 
all nations had no such arbitrary arrangements. 

It was several years later when Peter was summoned by 
vision to get out of Jerusalem and to go to Cornelius with 
the gospel. That vision has played a prominent part in 
the grand burlesque of Romanism, A great widespreading 
cloth let down from heaven by the four corners wherein were 
all manner of four-footed beasts and fowls and creeping 
things and the command three times given to "rise, slay 
and eat." What higher authority does a semi-heathen priest- 
hood want for seizing and devouring everything in sight. 



INTRODUCTION. xvii 

in air, earth and sea, and in what characteristic has the 
apostate chnrch been more pronounced than in claiming 
everything in heaven, earth and hell and consuming with 
^^teeth like a lion" whatever it could lav hands upon bj 
sword or superstition ? 

Paul and Paulinism slept during these dark centuries 
till the sixteenth, when Wittenburg rose as the Xew Antioch 
and Luther, who was as the resurrection of Paul from the 
dead, gave us in his own ministry the two leading charac- 
teristics of that apostle — personal faith and personal liberty. 
These lay at the base of Protestantism. They are its vital 
breath, its insjDiration and also by perversion its baneful bar- 
rier to that regeneration which was the ideal of the prophets 
and apostles, as we shall yet see. 

Paul's apostleship stands apart from the Jerusalem form- 
ula as uncanonical and void and yet it stands above it 
by the glory of vision and by ^'labors more abundant than 
they all." His call is the wellspring of Protestant missions. 
At the base of this ministry is the direct call from the glori- 
fied but still wounded head of the church, revealed in the 
vision and in the words that rang all through his soul. ^^Saul ! 
Saul ! why persecutest thou me ?" Protestantism which 
has followed Paul with even more faithfulness in letter than 
Rome has followed Peter has produced a different civiliza- 
tion, characterized by personal faith and personal liberty, 
destined to overthrow all despotism in its track around the 
world. The manner of Paul's call to the ministry remains 
a challenge to Roman succession and it is ever the delight 
of Protestant ministers to attribute their call to a personal 
election of the Holy Spirit, attended often by visions com- 



xviii INTRODUCTION. 

pared to that of Paul in the influence upon their lives and 
doctrine as against all formal succession and church decrees 
and even of college diplomas. 

The distinction is clear in the practical difference be- 
tween a succession ministry based on arbitrary rules and 
a free-born ministry that places its present trust in the power 
of a present living God by a present experience of the author- 
ity of Godliness in the life. Upon that vision of Paul on the 
road to Damascus he rested his conversion, his apostleship, 
his letters and the Gentile Christian church of the first 
century ; and since his revival we are able to point to Protest- 
ant churches, Protestant schools, Protestant libraries, Protest- 
ant universities and Protestant governments and civilizations, 
all resting not upon the written gospels nor directly upon 
the Great Commission, but upon a vision and upon its su- 
preme authority in a special commission. 

The great changes in the progress of all 'New Testament 
revelations about vital questions were marked by visions. 
The last and mightiest of them came near the close of the 
century and had the least of personal coloring and the high- 
est Christology. Its author had no factional following, as 
some who were ^^for Paul and some for Appollos and some 
for Peter." The teaching of this vision had no reference 
to the mid-century controversy about the Jew and Gentile. 
It looked out upon a changed situation. It presents Christ 
in His wider relations to the world powers in the ages to 
come, and the regeneration, the kingdom of heaven, a truth 
transmitted from generation to generation, ^^dead as a stone 
waiting to be struck into fire." / 

In overcoming the mind limits of the earlier disciples the 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

Holy Spirit has asserted His divine power, but the progress 
was marked by friction like that which Peter had with pure 
Judaism and that Paul had with Petrine Christianity and 
that the future may have with Paulinism that is Paul's per- 
sonal environment and more with Paul misunderstood. 

It is that long contest between progress and conservatism, 
between him that is born after the flesh and him that is born 
after the spirit — conformists and non-conformists, one fol- 
lowing the form and the other the spirit and truth. 

Above the brightness of an Asiatic sun at noonday there 
shone a light and with it there came a voice louder than 
the oral gospel and a presence grander than the earthly person 
of Jesus and a Spirit mighty as that of Pentecost summon- 
ing Paul, the father of the Gentile church, to that mission 
which, again wakened from the dead in the sixteenth century, 
remains to this day the world's highest accepted Christianity. 
But he himself groaned under his limits. He said, ''I have 
not yet attained," and ^'I have fed you with milk and not 
with meat for hitherto ye were not able to bear it." 

The Protestant reformation bears the stamp of Paul as 
a life of contentions and debates and a world of strife and of 
sects, and Christian unity can come only when John, who 
recorded the prayer of Jesus for the union of believers, comes 
into his own authority and power, the event to be hoped 
for in the new century. 

Peter, Paul and John, these three. They start with dif- 
ferent conceptions of Christ and follow out to the end on their 
respective lines, modified by their personalities and the 
change in times into three different results in Christian civil- 
ization, which show their personal and providential limits. 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

Even conversion itself depends largely upon our concep- 
tion of Christ. That once given we have the sure prophecy 
of His doctrine and His life. What is not in the germ can- 
not unfold in the life. These three represent three strongly 
marked types and those types are closely related to their 
personal visions and mark three periods of Christian history. 
At the same time Peter- confessed his Master as the Messiah 
he also chided Him for saying He must be betrayed of the 
Jews and crucified, and in turn Christ said to him, ^'Get be- 
hind me, Satan ; you are an offense to me for you know not 
the things that belong to the Kingdom of God." He con- 
tinued ignorant of Christ and conceived of Him as a person 
and of His kingdom as such as might be defended with the 
sword, as Paul before his conversion had thought it was 
something to be destroyed with the sword. Peter seemed 
not to understand that his authority did not extend to sup- 
plying the twelfth apostle, and his rules for apostolic quali- 
fications and election show his own lower conception not 
only of his own office but of Christ's as well. 

Peter nowhere shows his appreciation of the Great Com- 
mission to go into all the world, and remained at Jerusalem, 
so that even the persecution that scattered the disciples 
abroad preaching left the apostles remaining in Jerusalem 
and it required the special command accompanied by a 
miracle to get him to go to Cornelius. Peter was an admirer 
of Christ's miracles of power and prayed that he might walk 
on the waves. The vision that came to him had such rela- 
tions to his appetite that Luke is at pains to tell us he was 
very hungry when he went upon the housetop to pray and 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

the vision of a great cloth let down from heaven by the four 
corners was full of all kinds of living creatures. 

These circumstances clearly indicate the plane of the man's 
mind 'and his conception of Christ at the time of his leader- 
ship, and it is out of such that Petronism has evolved and 
consummated in form and doctrine and practice. 

Paul was converted from a persecutor. ^^He verily thought 
he ought to do many things against this way." His con- 
version and his commission came to him from an inde- 
pendent source. His ministry and his doctrine and his 
life w^ere the answer to the question, ^^Why persecutest thou 
me ?" He knew no Christ after the flesh nor after the Great 
Commission nor after any apostles of a ^^holy order of suc- 
cession," nor any legal cabinet issuing rules and regulations, 
but sat things in order as need arose. He learned that Christ 
is here, living and dwelling in His saints whom He was put- 
ting to death, and that shaft of light never left piercing his 
soul. 

John grew up into Christ and was probably of his first 
disciples and there is no account of his conversion. He had 
trained with the Baptist in the wilderness and knew all of 
Peter's and Paul's experience, life, doctrine and ministry. 
We must add to this his sixty-five years of observation after 
the resurrection of Christ. He must have had over eighty 
years of study in the first century. Prom about the time 
of Augustus Csesar he must have outlived Tiberius and 
Claudius and ^ero and Galba and Otho and Yitellius and 
Vespasian and Titus and Domitian, Roman emperors in 
succession, if not also into the reign of J^erva or even of 
Trajan^ and near the close of the century Jesus Christ came 



XXii INTRODUCTION. 

to him and laid His hand upon him and gave him a double 
message, one for his own time and another for ^^the things 
which shall come to pass hereafter." 

Peter's conception of Christ was expressed in his confes- 
sion of His Messiahship, in which he saw the hope of Israel 
at His coming. 

PauFs conception of Christ saw him residing in the believ- 
ers and confessed Him Lord of all, both Jew and Gentile, 
and His seat of power in the church to which He would 
return. 

John's conception of Christ confessed Him the logos — the 
Word of God from the beginning and as both dwelling in 
His people and as coming to extend His scepter over ^^all 
tribes, tongues, peoples and nations, the King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords. 

From these three primal conceptions of Christ the evolu- 
tion proceeded on three lines of development. Between the 
Petrine Romanist and the Protestant there lies such a gulf 
that the former may live a lifetime beside the latter and 
never understand him and there lies another mental gulf 
between the Pauline Protestant and the prophet of regenera- 
tion that requires great mental freedom to overcome. 

It is only by accepting these stages of development we 
escape a partial and one-sided view of Christianity. 

The manifest progress of the Old Testament and of the 
"New over the Old demands we should recognize the ad- 
vancing steps during the progress from Pentecost to Patmos. 
In that time Christianity grew from Christian legalism to 
Christian theism. 

Peter, Paul and John, special commissioners under the 



INTRODUCTION. xxiii 

Holy Spirit by the ^ 'glory" of 'Visions and revelations of 
the Lord/' all preached. Peter preached the gospel but 
legalized its application. 

Panl preached the gospel but formalized its acceptance 
as "a form of doctrine to be obeyed," while John preached 
the gospel and vitalized its spirit and truth as the life of 
God to be lived in the world ''even life eternal." 

Petronism is Christianity in its infancy, tempted, fallen 
and to be put away. 

Paulinism is Christianity in its youth, looking toward 
manhood, "putting away childish things." 

Regenerationism is the ripe manhood, "knowing even as 
we are known" — "the full corn in the ear" — "the best of 
the wine for the last of the feast," and John its prophet. 

Peter's place in sacred history ends with the fifteenth 
chapter of Luke's Acts of Apostles ; Paul's with the twenty- 
eighth chapter; but John's with the twenty-second chapter 
of the "Revelation which God gave him to show to His 
servants." 

Of these three, John alone composed a gospel and in his 
Revelation he uses abundant material from Luke's gospel 
and Acts and from his o\vn gospel but none at all from what 
is peculiar to Matthew or Mark. 

Peter and Paul magnify their offices, but John never in 
all his ^ve writings ever calls himself by any title of distinc- 
tion or honor. His mission stands apart as a new addition."^ 



* "Almost a canon by itself is formed by the group of writings 
attributed anciently to St. John."— B. W. Bacon, D. D., Yale, Intro- 
duction to N. T. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION. 

Peter was a Jewish citizen in all his thought and interests 
and had regard to the law of Moses. 

Paul was a Koman citizen and enjoined obedience to the 
civil rules of Rome, whose protection he "received against 
the Jewish persecutors appealing to Csesar for his own life. 

John was in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ 
and in tribulation from the Roman power that protected 
Paul up to the time he wrote his Roman letter. Their respec- 
tive relations to these powers made a wide distinction in 
the lines of their teaching. 

Out of Peter's teaching came the Mosaism of the earlier 
times. Out of Paul's teaching came the mistaken '^divine 
right of kings. ""^ Out of John's teaching both the spiritual 
and temporal supremacy of Christ. 

John having refused, as we must suppose, to pay idolatrous 
worship to the image of the emperor Domitian, which was 
set up in all parts of the empire to test the loyalty of his 
subjects, was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he re- 
ceived the Revelation which deals with the relations of the 
Christ to the princes and rulers of the earth and the end 
of time. 



* The reference is certainly to Paul's unfailing refuge against 
Jewish malice and persecution, the usual incorruptible Roman maj- 
esty (Rom. 13:1-6), which at this very period v/as signally befriend- 
ing him. (Acts 18:12-17.) The savage persecution of Nero, in which 
both Peter and Paul were victims, at least, according to early belief, 
was a thunderbolt from the clear sky, which struck the church dumb 
with horror and completely transformed its conception of Rome 
as a protecting power restraining Belial even temporarily is incon- 
ceivable after July, 64 A. D.— B. W. Bacon, 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

PAUL AND JOHE". 

Paul and John stand apart not only as to the issues they 
had to meet by the change in the progress of time, but also 
in their personal traits and methods. Paul is more analytic, 
John more synthetic. Paul is more discursive and polemic, 
John intrinsic and irenic. Paul is logical, legal and arith- 
matic, John is theological, poetical and algebraic. 

Paul reasoned v^ithin a circle of admitted facts tov^ard a 
central conclusion; John strikes the center at once with the 
magic use of symbols and widens every line into the infinite. 
Paul preached faith, John knowledge. Paul saw faith the 
highest faculty in man, John saw love as the highest attribute 
of God. Paul was perturbed like a reformer, John calm like 
a conqueror. 

Paul directed his efforts more to calling Jew and Gentile 
to come out of the world into the church, John to raising 
Christ up over the world. 

Of the thirty-two parables of Christ, John did not record 
one; ,of the thirty-three miracles of Christ he records six, 
and of the twenty-four discourses of Christ he records eight. 
His only record of the transfiguration is in the words, ^'We 
beheld His glory as of the only begotten Son." 

John was a close student of men, and could set them be- 
fore us by their deeper and inmost qualities by a single 
stroke. He makes us see the Baptist and Philip and Thomas 
and ]^athaniel in the very pith of their personalities, and in 
his revelation he is able to raise to our view the leading 
apostles by the characteristic parts which they acted, and he 
surprises and delights us by the literary utility and far- 



xxvi INTRODUCTION. 

sightedness by which he makes the truth seem new and fresh 
by the singular beauty of his conception. 

CLASSIFICATIOK 

'No greater harm has been done to John than the classify- 
ing of his Revelation with the later Jewish and post-apos- 
tolic apocalypses. It is left for the body of this book to fully 
refute that classification. 



THIED EDITION REVISED. 

MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH 

OR 

THE RIVEN VEIL 



By JASPER SEASTON HUGHES. 



AN EXPERIENCE. 

Upon the living room table in my father's house had lain 
from my earliest recollections an ancient writing, abont which 
the most fascinating traditions had gathered. It came to be 
known as the Golden Cloth or Cloth of Gold, and into its 
fibers were wrought and interpreted certain promises that to its 
possessor some day wonld come a great reward. This strange 
writing was an heirloom to my father as it had been to his 
father and so on back from father to son from a period beyond 
the point we were able to trace onr family tree. Jnst why it 
had been so closely preserved and so carefully handed down 
Avas never very rationally accounted for. 

In my father's day it was sometimes referred to as the "Eo- 
setta/' meaning the famous Eosetta stone, because it resembled 
it in having the appearance of having been written in highly 
pictorial language, and also because it implied a possibility 
that the mystery it held should some day be revealed and so 
prove to be a key to a treasure-house of knowledge far more 
valuable even than that. The characters bore unmistakable 
marks of antiquity and of an oriental origin. It differed from 

3 



4 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the Eosetta stone in being written upon parchment instead of 
engraved in stone^ and the figures employed nearly all the 
wonders in nature, were worked in relief upon its face and 
cunningly made of the same threads, or strands, that composed 
the fabric like a Damasque or an Arabesque. Though the 
language seemed to convey one and the same message, the 
unique arrangement had led into confusion all who had at- 
tempted its interpretation. This fact was supposed to render 
it impossible to be understood. The innumerable efforts of the 
great and learned who had carefully examined true copies of 
it had failed to give the key, and many concluded it was the 
work of some idle monk or ingenious person having no mean- 
ing of importance and but the carrying out of a mere fancy to 
dispose of idle time by weaving a trackless maze which no one 
might ever unravel, or if he should, would be ill rewarded for so 
great pains. But all agreed that, in view of so many failures, it 
was a great presumption for any one to attempt the secret. 
There grew around the Cloth therefore a veil of mist, of super- 
stition, for its mysteries and a reverence for its antiquity as 
well as for a vague interest in the groups of characters them- 
selves so strangely worked into it and spread over its surface. 

This strange old book fell to me and was preserved with the 
same reverence; though not without certain mental question- 
ings, as it had been in the hands of my ancestors through a 
long line, even jealously, though I could not tell the reason 
why. Being a little venturesome, I had once cherished the 
ambitious design of some day finding at least some part of its 
long hidden secret, and, being myself an unordained evangel- 
ist, I had even ventured a few years before to interest my 
listeners in its imagery who had all seen copies of the Cloth 
of Gold and had pondered its sibyllic oracles with wonder. 

I had postponed the undertaking till T might feel less of 
awe, and might never have begun it again but for the saddest 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 5 

possible calamity that befell me. rpon my lovely home, which 
I held ill my heart to be the most perfect Eden since that one 
from which the four rivers went out long ago, there fell the 
shadow of the darkest cloud that ever lowered over a spot which 
perfect love had made happy from our bridal day. My dear 
Emily sank abruptly into the abysmal pit of melancholia from 
a previous life of continued cheerful health. My o"uti bitter- 
ness of spirit became to me unbearable and, disqualified for the 
duties of life, I was compelled to seek some way to divert my 
thoughts from an agony too intense to be borne. But my ef- 
forts were entirely unavailing and, in whatever direction I 
sought diversion or oblivion from my sorrow it proved unavail- 
ing. I sought some sea great enough to dro\\Ti my all consum- 
ing grief. After some months it came to me that on my table 
there lay a labyrinth of mystery no man had ever threaded and 
one where I might surely lose my burden and bury my grief. 
I determined to do so, remembering, however, that it was com- 
monly believed that most, or many at least, had become in- 
sane in this venturous attempt, and a proverb had often been 
spoken that he who attempts to find the secret of the Cloth of 
Gold is either insane when he begins, or will be when he ends 
it. My distress assisted my usual venturesome disposition and 
urged me to the attempt. 

The Cloth of Gold had always been kept within the lids of 
the old family Bible as in some way akin to it like the family 
record, or somewhat nearer, but considered as of doubtful right 
to be taken into the full credit of scripture truth; and as it 
never left its place folded in and bound with it, and as it 
closes with words of warning well suiting the close of the great 
book, I chose to regard it as inspired. As a vast body of tra- 
dition had gathered around the author of the work, of little 
value as affecting either the invention or the author of it, I in- 
tended that all claims for the character of both should rest upon 



6 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

what I might find by searching the book itself. Here and 
there^ on the original of which ours is but a translation^ are 
to be found sayings in Greek showing all the marks of care and 
painstaking possible and bearing marks of literary value, but 
are meshed together in an order of hieroglyphic misrule to 
which neither the Eosetta stone nor any other relic of anti- 
quity has yet furnished a parallel or the key to unlock. 

A weird element of the Cloth is a sort of psalmody of an 
unearthly and supernal type as from the spell of some en- 
chanted dreamer or transcendental philosopher singing a dirge 
over perished empires in which a sacramental host in white 
joins in acclamations of victory over earth and death and time. 
One thing of much importance to m& was that all traditions 
agreed in saying that the author of this antique was an exile, 
and this strange mosaic which he composed contains the state- 
ment by the author himself that it was while there he wrought 
out the work. I said, soliloquizing, "Here is a man who can 
sympathize with me. He too was an exile, as I am, broken 
hearted and far from his sweet home once graced with the 
presence of Mary the mother of Jesus; and her© in this far 
off island in solitude has found food for his mind and, may 
be, solace for his heart. For his sake I will study this fabric." 
Then, too, he was not a modern tobacco fiend, and did not 
read the daily papers for his mental diet nor engage in poli- 
tics, and being an exile presumably for life, I will pledge my 
honor he will tell the truth and be good company, if he speaks, 
and that will be luxury enough for me, and, so help me, I will 
be his companion. If it prove a condescending choice, I alone 
hold the secret. 

Near the beginning I find these words in well written Greek, 

Maxdpio? 6 avayivdySxoav, ;jfai oi clxovovte'^ rov \6yov rfj'i 
irpocprfTEia'i, x<^^ rrjpovvve'i ra kv avrff ysypafx/xsva 6 yap jazpoS 
eyyvi. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 7 

'•Blessed is lie who reads these words of teaching and they also 
who hear and keep the things written therein I"' Well that 
looks a little like a book advertisement of the modern kind, 
bnt it is n'ot. There may be very little in it, I know not, bnt 
the man is honest, and since this world is not worth a fig to 
me now my Emily langnishes in deep delnsion at the Sanita- 
rium, and her love tnrned away from all she ever cherished, and 
as there is nothing else I can do, I will give good heed to this 
lone man and his strange work. I will listen to this strange 
old man as the lover listens to the lute. I will take the slight- 
est cine to the secret of the sonl of him who made this old 
fabric and wrote into it a charm that has ontlived and has borne 
it above the ages in which all has perished except that which 
has some sort of merit. Let one banished man speak to an- 
other across eighteen centuries. Here am I, so speak on old 
exile I I am ready, I for one will listen. Give me one thread 
of light, or let me tonch one string of thy harp, and I will 
follow it to the end, and not let go till I can feel thy soul 
throbs beat against mine own. Xo one else need know of our 
matter, bnt thy secret, if a solace to a sorrowing heart, shall 
be mine. I will follow thee, for I too, am out of fashion with 
my corrupt age as thou with thine. I will search for thy bless- 
ing as for hidden treasure, for now thy far away exile is not 
half so distant to me as the cold mercenary world of nothings 
and nobodies about me. 

But, on second thought now, I am presumptuous. Great men 
have tried to disclose this secret. Scholars many have searched 
and toiled and have written glosses and have proposed such 
questions as they knew how to answer to save their credit with 
the multitude, and have themselves written '"Caution' above 
the Golden Cloth — tacit confession of failure — caution to all 
not to be presumptuous to suppose any mortal mind can ever 
follow the threads inwrought by this old hermit of the Agean. 



8 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

But whose affair is it if he and I can find company here? I 
will first have enough respect for our great learning to consult 
its oracles as to the direction in which I shall turn my inquiry. 
This I proceeded to do^ and found that they all agreed he 
would indeed be a blessed and happy man who should ever 
read aright the secret of the Golden Cloth written by the exile. 
But I could not find any who claimed to enjoy the happiness 
he promised, though they all gave warning to the curious that 
suit at this oracle is vain. But it was a chilling and labyrin- 
thian road to travel, to follow their vaporous comments, and 
so, tired and discouraged, I halted to rest. It then came to 
me that it was supposed by some that the writing in some way 
contained a prophetic construction; a forecast of coming times 
as the pyramids are said to contain in their construction a 
guide to ancient astronomy. So I fumbled over history a little, 
keeping one e'ye on the Cloth; but this was spiritless and with- 
out profit, and I found I had again wandered away from my 
old friend. It then occurred to me that I had often said in 
my "Telling Talks,'^ which I call my lectures, that in all mat- 
ters of conscience the first answer is best, while in all ques- 
tions of judgment the last answer is safest, and said my heart, 
in soliloquy, you have told this old hermit exile that you be- 
lieve in him and love him more than all the world. Now you 
and he have it out all alone. The prompting is true: That 
was my first thought, and I believe the best. I will do it. 
Then I again read his words of blessing, and this time I no- 
ticed the text in Greek did not say blessed is he who reads 
these words and then goes to the commentaries to find out 
what they mean. Ah, yes! I see. If I am to follow you I 
cannot run off after some one else nor care too much for their 
opinions — just we two. We are outcasts. Good. If he is an 
exile from home, he will speak of that and tell me the grief 
he bore and how he bore it and for what cause he was exiled 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 9 

and what difference there may be between his day when a 
man was deported into exile on a solitary island where no loved 
face conld be seen, and one doomed to remain at home and 
face the frown of the crowds that hate him for rebuking their 
sins. That, I will do; I will listen to him because he put into 
his apocalypse that which kept it from oblivion. That there 
is some kind of reason about it, is manifest, or it could not have 
survived, and this reason, if I can but find it, may be the goal 
richer than hidden treasure or any last will and testament of 
chattels. I approach it with a hungering heart and a freedom 
of inquiry ncAv to my experience, and in which I feel more ad- 
vancement, working on the lower plane of personal quest for 
sympathy than as critic or scholar for attainment. 

It was soon to be seen that the theme of his story was not 
at all about his own affairs, as mine; not a dirge over a lost 
home, nor even a pining to return to his country, nor anything 
of the kind; nothing in common with what had driven me to 
seek shelter from sorrow^s storm. And now I seemed to in- 
trude upon one who had risen to the sublimest heights of rap- 
ture. He was absorbed and in ecstacy over another person 
whose company he may have sought, or for w^hose sake per- 
chance he suffered exile. Neither home nor friends nor soli- 
tude had the least of his attention, but one who stood to him 
all and more than mortal could be to me. N"ow I have made 
a vulgar mistake in supposing this old hermit beneath my com- 
pany. I am to envy him; he is above the reach and care of 
this world, triumphant. Ah I may be he has wrought the story 
of his Master in this book. But affecting for the moment that 
I knew nothing of what I might fmd, only imagining that I 
was coming for the first time to the study of the Golden Cloth, 
I yet knew well he had a hero, but I will love him the more 
for that. Here he has inscribed his likeness and I will study 
him in the likenesses he draws of him, his hero, and mine, for 



10 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

to him I gave my loyalty before I knew and loved Emily, and 
to whom I referred when I frankly told her at our engagement 
that she held the highest place in my heart any one could hold 
on earth, emphasizing the last two words. And though that 
first friend was removed from me further than the Agean, he 
was always imaged in my memory and my hope since my bap- 
tism in a stream near Clinton's Station. What if this Cloth 
of Gold prove a revelation of him in times to come? It so 
alleges in the opening. I am to look for "things to come to 
pass hereafter." So, turning away from the commentaries, I 
must accept only what I may find here alone with the Cloth 
in hand. 

The wonderful imagery of animals on earth and about the 
throne, and rivers, seas, mountains, angels, demons, etc., seemed 
at first to obstruct my looking deeper into its mechanism as 
the figures on the wall divert our attention from the seams in 
the paper. But I will begin at the base. So I began to in- 
spect the writing most leisurely. My earnest patient search 
convinced me I had done well in following my heart prompt- 
ings rather than any fine theories or learned veneering. It be- 
came manifest that this work is not a fragment of some other 
work but a complete and finished fabric; all its seeming diverse 
and disconnected parts bearing definite and intelligible rela- 
tions to some matter simple in its essence, but of enormous pur- 
port; and I did well in taking the exile at his promise that he 
should be a happy man who should read the words of prophecy 
written herein. Here I began to be strengthened in the sound- 
ness of my fixed purpose and to feel a rising hope of finding a 
place to lay down my unbearable burden, already begun to be 
experienced in part, and dismissing all my earlier impressions 
I will persist and follow again and again any clew that gives 
promise of progress. 

First, then, I will carefully inspect the threads or strands 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 11 

that seem to compose it. They are not very numerous. Here 
I take hold of a golden thread. It is precious as having passed 
through the fire in which I am myself so deeply tried. It 
rises, then sinks away into the fabric and disappears to rise 
again further on. I will follow it. But though I did follow, 
I found I had lost it a little later, and so had to go back and 
begin to follow again till I discovered, after several trials, that 
by some means I could not understand, I always lost my thread 
and could not tell how I lost it. Well, as I have nothing else 
to do, I will find where the trouble lies. 

Thousands, it may be, have trod this path before me and 
I am but repeating their failures, and now I must give my- 
self a reason why, and how, I lost my strand and was not able 
to tell how. That I will fathom. What is it that diverts my 
attention? "Wliat is this, this mystic labyrinth whose unseen 
mouth yawns and engulfs me at its threshold? What syren 
sings me off my course? I have at least discovered there is 
some mystery about its losing my attention and letting go my 
golden strand undiscerningly and finding myself off the course 
and gazing again upon the wilderness of confused imagery lost. 
Well, here is a bewitchment, and again I tried and failed, and so 
on, till I said there is no use; if I cannot follow one thread 
through the Cloth of Gold, I never can get another step. That 
is the least I can do, and that must be done first. I found 
later that it was the larger figures of different moral colors 
through which the threads passed and each time taking on the 
color of that figure of which it formed a part like an Arabesque 
of dazzling colors, that had absorbed me and spirited away my 
attention and my pursuit. So I sought, and later found a sort 
of familiarity with these figures that permitted me, after very- 
many trials, to follow to its end at the further side, one of 
its threads. But what have I accomplished? I have simply 
followed one thread through to its end. Well, why could I 



12 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

not do it the first time? What manner of bewitchery caught 
away my attention? I am curious. If the exile is simply some 
great artist lost in his art he is in his right place and proves 
himself already a most interesting person, for no other I ever 
knew could so completely phantom me out of my purpose to 
inspect his work. Well, then, he may be a master artist so 
great and original he has hidden his art, the secret of this 
golden mystery, at the very threshold, so that all men are caught 
away like himself into exile. But now, what about my thread 
of gold? W^ell I take it again and follow it to the end, and 
now I will mark its track so I can identify it by these antique 
figures on the face if I should chance to want to use it again. 
Well, there it goes now and it enters into the golden girdle 
with which the Son of Man is girdled and enters the shining 
chaplets of the elders around the throne who have on their 
crowns of gold, and there is gold in the hand of the angel in the 
temple swinging a golden censer and another angel who rides 
the cloud chariot has a golden crown and it ends up in the 
pavements cf a blessed city at the other end whose streets are 
paved with gold.* Accident? Yes, of course, but' still inter- 
esting. It seems to have started at the other end where gold 
is plentiful enough to make paving for the streets. It may be 



*Now you must always be prepared to read Greek legends as you 
would cface threads through figures on a silken damask. The same 
thread runs through the web, but it makes part of different figures 
joined with other colors you hardly recognize it; and in different 
lights it is dark or light. Thus the Greek fables blend and cross 
curiously in different directions till they knit themselves into an 
Arabesque where sometimes you can not tell black from purple 
nor blue from emerald, they being all the truer for this, for the 
truths of emotion they represent are interwoven in the same way 
but all the more difficult to read and to explain in any order. — 
Ruskin, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 13 

tliis means something of method that may justify my faith in 
the good sense of the author and my own resolve to follow him. 

I will try another strand. Here is a white thread of which 
are the white head, and white hair, and white garments, etc. 
Again I realize the old trouble about holding on to my thread, 
for, in turning from one to the other side, I lose the clew to 
find it reappearing in new and seemingly unrelated combina- 
tions nearly impossible to carry out. But having followed it 
to the end, I try to mark the track so I can follow it again, 
if needed. My white thread finds its beginning in the white 
head and hair of "the Prince of the rulers of the earth,^' which 
are "white, white as wool and as white as snow," and it passes 
to the elders in white robes around the throne and it passes 
through the little gem stone which is white, and an angel reaper 
rides a wdiite cloud, and a white horse with a victorious rider 
goes forth to conquer, a great white sea appears, and it ends 
up in a great white throne at the further end. 

"Green," which is found to mean living, is followed in the 
same way, all its occurrences showing spiritual life. "Black," 
which means ignorance, is connected entirely with things op- 
posed to the white and to the green even as night is opposed to 
day. Now I take the word "red" and follow it to the end to 
find its track marked by a red horse with a rider having a great 
sword to take away peace from the earth, and a sea of red blood, 
and a great red dragon, and a lake of red fire at last for the 
dire consignment of the wicked. 

All this is something more than accident. Here, I said, is 
an accumulation of suggestive circumstances too great to be 
mere accident or coincidence. I begin to feel it is a little too 
familiar to call this man my brother, although he says plainly, 
"I, John, who also am your brother and companion in the 
tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ!" H 
he can ever forgive me for my first patronizing approach and 



14: MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the mean thought that it was a condescension for me to leave 
all else to hear instruction from him^ I will try to be a close 
listener to the end of his story. 

I felt that I had here found the rudiments of a governing 
principle which might gather into one the seemingly broken and 
scattered fragments of a temple of a dream strewn across the 
plane of time into some kind of order or articulation. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 15 



CHAPTEE I. 

Revelation I. 

THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST. 

Here we drop our own allegory. It was but an echo of a 
thousand loftier strains which inspired it, a stepping stone to 
their approach. The singular genius of the Revelation has 
wakened a new song in the hearts of myriads by a melody whose 
rhythm they could not catch, but, drawn on by a charm as yet 
lacking intelligibility, have yearned for the joy of its light 
as the mariner on the troubled sea at night yearns for the break 
of day. Victor Hugo when he had himself become an exile, 
sat down to read with a new heart and fresh interest this won- 
drous book, and said, ^^In reading the poem of Patmos some 
one seems to push you from behind. The dread entrance, 
vaguely outlined, rouses mingled terror and longing." 

How charmingly simple is this statement of its author, "I, 
John, your brother and companion in the tribulation and king- 
dom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is 
called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of 
Jesus." Ah! where is this, your kingdom, solitary man? Did 
your king banish you into exile, or was it the other? It was 
for claiming to be the son of God that Christ was put to death 
and for daring to preach His resurrection that His apostles were 
persecuted, killed or exiled. Here is the last of them. In 
exile for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus here tran- 
quil, on a rock mid tumultuous seas from that desolating storm 
which swept down upon the church in the time of that second 
Nero, here calm, confident and triumphant. It was the time 



16 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

of tlie deepest trial to the young church. Titus, under the em- 
peror Vespasian, had laid Jerusalem in the dust and had put 
out the smoke upon her altar forever. The church which had 
been in constant expectation of the return of her Lord was 
now quickened in the hope of His return; for whatever may 
have been explained as the cause of His delay He had, as it 
was understood, connected that coming with the desolation of 
Jerusalem and had said "this generation shall not pass away 
till all these things come to pass." Paul^ who had written to 
the saints at Thessalonica to be not over distressed about their 
dead who had died while looking for the Lord's coming from 
heaven, which he and they both expected, said "we which are 
alive and remain till the coming of the Lord shall not precede 
them," was himself now dead about two years when Jerusalem 
fell. James had long ago been slain, and Peter had closed his 
ministry with a martyr's glory. The "pillar apostles" were 
dead except this one about whom Peter asked when he had 
been foretold of his own martyrdom — "what is it to thee if he 
tarry till I come." The vexing and fiery persecution of Nero 
was at a distance in the past. The desolation of Jerusalem 
raised a new agitation in the life and hope of the church. "The 
coming of the Lord," which Christ Himself had so closely con- 
nected with that event, quoting from the "prophet Daniel," 
led the disciples to a new and profound study of Daniel's proph- 
esy with a view to that coming, and, as we shall see, two of 
its great visions form the very framework on which this story 
is laid. In answer to the question "what shall be the sign 
of thy coming" He had cited the desolation of Jerusalem, and 
as that event stretched further and further behind them there 
was a growing lukewarmness, and spiritual decadence had be- 
gun as at Sardis and Laodicea. 

The time of painful emergency had come and patience was 
on trial, when an explanation of his Lord's delay must be given, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. ^fllp ^^ 

for His living witnesses were now few. He had said "this gen- 
eration shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled." 
The mind of the exile is filled with a thousand wonderings in 
solitude when his Lord appeared to him with the Eevelation. 
Till now the disciples had been gazing into heaven looking 
for His return ''as ye saw Him ascend." They had been slow 
to learn that Christ must die and rise again from the dead, 
and though forewarned of it often, were disheartened at His 
death and returned to their nets and were unbelieving when 
told of His resurrection as of an idle tale and they stood gaz- 
ing and amazed when He ascended out of their sight; and 
though He returned to them in power on the day of Pente- 
cost they continued to gaze heavenward for His glorious ap- 
pearing with His angels to possess His kingdom and to reign 
with themselves on thrones over Israel and the world. The 
suspense had become agonizing w^hen John was exiled, for, in 
addition to the promise as they understood it that this genera- 
tion should not pass away till all these things be fulfilled, there 
was a rumor current that John, the Bosom Disciple, should 
not die but should tarry till Christ should come as He Himself 
tells us. 

The minds of the believers would grow slowdy but surely 
amid these wondrous events. The crowning act was here to 
transpire. The succession of the wondrous events were the 
personal ministry of Christ, His death upon the cross. His res- 
urrection to life. His ascension to glory the day of Pentecost 
and last His glorious appearance to John in Patmos. Great 
. prophesies are given in times of great emergencies. The per- 
secution of the infamous Nero w^as more to divert attention 
from himself, charged with the burning of Eome, than from 
any fear of the new sect, and it is doubtful if his persecution 
extended to any large degree into the provinces where this book 
was directed to be sent, but there was another Nero — Flavius 
2 



IS MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Domitius — whose aim was the extermination of the church from 
the earth, which the churches in all the provinces where John^s 
later life was spent, must liave sorely felt. 

The emperor Domitioon carried heathenism to its climax. 
Till now the church, so dear to the heart of the exile, had not 
seen heathenism in its direst form. 

Domition was the twelfth of the Eoman Caesars. He not 
only caused himself to be worshipped as a god, but was the 
first to cause himself to be placed upon the legal papers as 
"The Lord God Domitius.^^ He caused himself to be deified in 
the public documents and thus while living assumed honors 
which had formerly been allowed only to the dead; and so 
withstood the growing worship of Christ. 

In the isle of Patmos is an exile whom Domition has ban- 
ished and to him his risen Lord comes back and addresses him 
to explain the promise of His coming and these mysterious 
words, "what is it to thee if he tarry till I come.'^ 

Here is the climax of sin met by the climax of revelation. 
To this lone survivor who tells us four times his name is John 
and now near the close of his life, Christ appears and says to 
him, "I am He that was dead and behold I am alive forever more 
and have the keys of death and of Hades." "I am Jesus Christ, 
the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, the rul«r 
of the kings of the earth." "He that loved us and loosed us 
from our sins by His own blood and made us to be a kingdom, 
to be priests unto God and His Father." The exile says, "I 
was in the spirit on the Lord's Day and I heard behind me a 
great voice as of a trumpet saying, Svhat thou seest write in 
a book and send it to the seven churches.' " There, serene 
where the storm had driven him; a book is to be written. This 
is our order for the woven mystery. It is the revelation from 
God. How intensely the circumstances incite our quest 
for its secret! The first chapter seems a title page with the 



on, THE RIVEN VEIL. 1^ 

spiritual and official portrait of the hero arrayed in the mys- 
tic emblems of spiritual royalty to wage a spiritual warfare. 
In this chapter he is five times called Jesus Christ, but never 
again so named till the mystery is finished. Here is a sugges- 
tion of design, of mystery. The area of the maze enlarges. 

"And I turned to see the voice which spake with me and 
being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks and in the midst 
of them one like to the Son of Man clothed with a garment 
down to the foot and girt about the breast with a golden girdle 
and his head and his hair were white, white as wool, white as 
snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like 
untQ burnished brass as if it had been refined in a furnace, 
and his voice as the voice of many waters, and he had in his 
right hand his seven stars and out of his mouth proceeded a 
sharp two edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun 
shineth in his strength." Ah! He who once sank under a Ro- 
man cross and the jeers of a sinning world, pressed by the 
mob, has come again, now victorious, first born from the dead, 
made alive forevermore, now from heaven most glorious whence 
He ascended in a cloud, now the leader of the deathless race 
to follow. He is come! Now with a great voice as of a trum- 
pet He declares His authority louder than in Herod's court when 
He stood before His own sinful nation and declared Himself 
the Son of God and King of the Jews. What speaks this for 
them alas! and for all His enemies? For such professions He 
was arrested, tried, sentenced and put to death under the world- 
wide Eoman rule, betrayed by His own people, forsaken by His 
disciples. To the Jews who hated Him He had said, "I am 
the Son of God;" to Herod's court that feared Him, "I am 
the King of the Jews/' and to His disciples who forsook Him, 
"I am the Christ." Above His cross was written in three lan- 
guages the mock inscription, "This Is Jesus, the King of the 



20 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Jews/' the irony to the Roman officers, the doom to the Jews' 
nation, and the ensign of salvation to the just. 

On one side that act expressed the world's judgment on all 
true reformers, and on the other, the love and tribulation and 
patience of the saints illustrated by the exile himself. To all, 
such death or exile may come, but denial never. ^Tor of a 
truth against the Lord and against His annointed, both Herod 
and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel 
were gathered together to do whatsoever thy hand and thy coun- 
cil determined before to be done." The world took up arms 
against Him, for it knew Him not. He was despised and re- 
jected. They crucified Him, and bribed the soldiers to deny 
His resurrection; they killed His chosen stars for preaching it, 
and had now banished John, the last, into exile doomed to 
solitude, despised and rejected of men like his Master. 

But of such situations God is most mindful. It was to Moses 
in the lonely mountain of Midian, a refugee from the brick 
yards of Egyptian serfdom and an exile from home and kin- 
dred, that God appeared in the burning bush and commissioned 
him a deliverer of His oppressed children. To ISToah, and to 
Abraham, when they had estranged themselves from their kin- 
dred by their loftier righteousness, God appeared, saving the 
one by the ark from the watery wastes to begin a new world, 
and the other by leading him from the altars of idolatry into 
a far country, afterward to be made his own; and to Daniel 
while a captive in exile far removed from "the pleasant land" 
where the wailing singers ^%ung their harps upon the willows 
and wept when they remembered Jerusalem," there God re- 
vealed His purposes concerning all ages. So to John in soli- 
tude among the rocky cliffs of far away Patmos whence per- 
secution had driver: him, God appears in the person of His 
Son with the last Eevelation of God to man till "He come with. 
clouds and every eye shall see Him." "I was in the isle that 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 21 

is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony 
of Jesns." This is his short story that he had borne testimony 
for Jesns. That he could not do with impunity. That was 
a denial of this world's right to rnle. It was for claiming the 
right to be king that Christ was slain, and that John, His 
servant, was banished. He had finng back the He in the face 
of this accusing world by testifying to "that which we have 
heard and which we have seen with our eyes, and have handled 
with our hands of the Word of Life which we declare unto 
you.'' The sinful powers that slew his Lord remain sinful 
and brutish and unrelenting as when Herod and Pontius Pilate 
and the Gentiles and the Jews forgot their mutual hatreds for 
one hour in their greater common hatred of the Christ. Ah! they 
are met again, the crucified and the exile, face to face, far 
from the stormy scenes of Calvary. ""WTiat is it to thee if he 
tarry till I come?'' John is in the flesh but he says, "I was 
in the spirit." His Lord is in glory but now also here pres- 
ent with him, near enougli to be seen, to hear him, to touch 
him. 

"Xord, and what shall this man do?" inquired Peter, who, 
seeing that disciple follow who had before leaned on Jesus' 
breast at supper. Now Jesus had said to Peter, "If I will that 
he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" And that saying 
went abroad among the disciples that that disciple should not 
die. That tradition has floated on down the stream of time, 
and may still be heard till this day among the folk-lore of 
Europe where the reappearance of "Prester Yahonnes," as 
he is called, from some long sequestration on the earth, is 
thought to be as imminent as the reappearance of his Master 
from the skies. But here, so sure as love is faithful to its 
promise, he does come to John, the exile. "I was in the spirit 
on the Lord's Day and heard behind me the voice of a trum- 
pet, and having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks, and 



S2 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

in the midst of them one like to the Son of Man clothed with 
a garment down to the foot and girt about the breast with a 
golden girdle.'' The m^ob of world powers has made a failure. 
He is not dead, but alive and manifest here, and is now with 
the exile whom with his brother James He once named Boan- 
erges — sons of thunder; but now creates him master scribe of 
the world and chief of prophetic seers, commands him to write 
in. a book and to send it to the seven churches which are in Asia, 
at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pegamos, at Thyatira, at Sardis, at 
Philadelphia, and at Laodicea. The actual number of churches 
in the world was much greater than seven^ and even in Asia 
Minor, as we know, but these by some method of selection or 
of representation are called "The Seven Churches." This raises 
the question whether there is not here a lowering, or annulling 
of numeral values to meet the higher purpose of some unusual 
narration? It deeply challenges our attention. In the same 
sentence he calls the one spirit of God "the seven spirits which 
are before His throne." Here is numeral excess. It is enig- 
matical. As we know the spirit of God to be one by the posi- 
tive teaching of scripture, we here strangely find it raised to 
a new ^mystical value in seven. Some occult but high purpose 
must lie under the adding a plural and multiple value to what 
we have so well fixed as an unit. If by the seven spirits the 
one spirit is meant, then we have a cancellation of numerical 
value, and a mystic value in seven that supersedes it, a spiritual 
meaning, a sign that shall give to the factors of the narra- 
tion he is about to give, a value and power suited to the higher 
purpose of Him "who spoke as never man spoke." Here is 
a hint we shall read on a higher plane. 

But beside the seven spirits, which express all spirit, and 
the seven churches, which express all churches, we have the 
seven stars as though they expressed the full spiritual firma- 
ment. He holds the seven stars in His right hand. AYhat vast 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 23 

suggestion may be contained in tliis manner of speeclil It is 
^^^itten here into his salutation — •"'Grace to yon and peace 
from Him whicli Is and which. AVas and which Is To Come; and 
from the seven spirits which are before His throne, and from 
Jesns Christ, etc.'' The sahitation of God with fuU titles and 
of the seven spirits, and of the Christ bearing aloft in His right 
hand His seven stars, while He walks amid the seven golden 
candlesticks, which are His wondrous seven churches. A new 
value by the process of some spiritual algebra is here expressed, 
waiting the unknown factors to round out its mighty import. 
By the same wondrous process we observe with amazement the 
breaking up of the unity of the Almighty name. To Abraham 
God said, '*T am the Almighty:'" to Moses He said, "Tell Pha- 
raoh I am that I am," verb of ever being: but here by an act 
of transcendant audacity if not of authority, the name of Deity 
is boldly broken into three words of time and of spiritual 
utihty, and of lofty import by new magnitudes of purpose 
for the vast theme of the book which the exile is commanded 
to write. "Grace to you and peace from Him which Is and 
Which "Was and Which I^ to Come.'" Time is here divided 
into three divine epochs by these new names of the Almighty. 
The full list of Almighty names is here given as expressing 
the totaUty of divine power. We see and identify God by all 
these great titles. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the 
Lord God, which Is and which Was and which Is To Come, 
the Almighty.*'" Such method of dividing time was never till 
now heard of. The same division of time is observed in the 
order given to John to write "'the things that are, and the 
things thou sawest, and the things which shall come to pass 
hereafter.'*' Here is a remarkable co-ordination of the divi- 
sion of time made more wonderful by the titles of the Christ 
who says, "T am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the 
last, the beginning and the end." This writing is to cover 



24 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tlie field of time, past, present and future. Such words lift 
the heart to heights hitherto unknoAvn, to tell the story of the 
hero as related to all time in the vast and awful imagery of 
heaven^ earth, sea, etc. 

It is "the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him 
to show to His servants; the gospel of Christ, by Christ/' It 
chooses to recognize these things by its ow^i transcendence of 
view. We must ascend in the spirit to receive it as John did. 
The things of the present, past and future are not to be taken 
as things in general, but things as they stand related to the 
Alpha and the Omega. Things the exile and his suffering 
brothers longed to know. So short a book as this, the limit 
of a single vision, must view the onwardness of all ages by 
some very abridged method. It must deal with essences, not 
with externals, and with conditions, not places, with principles, 
not persons. 

There is in this story at least a chief personality, the hero, 
and John, his revelator, but localities, externalities and lesser 
personalities are sunken from view, giving bolder relief to "the 
Alpha and the Omega,'' who gathers unto Himself the ends of 
time. There are three things to be noted in this salutation. 1. 
Never before nor after this one occurrence does the Holy Spirit 
hold a place between the names of the Father and the Christ. 
This imports a lesson by transposition. In this dispensation, 
the spirit did precede the announcement of the coronation of 
Christ on the pentecost succeeding His ascension, and this 
transposition of the usual order points to that fact. 2. Never 
before was the Spirit spoken of as "the seven spirits" or an- 
nounced as being before the throne of God. 3. Never before 
was the name of God formally divided into three w^ords of time 
— present, past and future, to show the epochs of Eevelation 
time. What a daring liberty is this of transposition and of 
destroying numeral values that a higher order may be taken, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 25 

an order in which numbers shall be raised to a higher office 
than mere units of things. But in such an undertaking how 
may the past, the present and the future be contained and 
conveyed with mental distinction? That will require an ex- 
traordinary method, and here that method is employed. 

THE THINGS THAT ARE. 

1. The things that are, that is to say, the things that were 
then present and current at the time of the exile's vision, are 
expressed in the seven letters to the seven churches. These are 
seven open letters, as distinguished from a. later sealed book 
which followed and was contained in seven sealed messages 
afterward called "the little book." 

2. . The open letters were addressed to seven actual churches 
at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pergamos, at Thyatira, etc. 

3. They present the relations of things then present in 
the relation of the churches to the world and to God between 
which they stood as suffering witnesses and lights. 

THE THINGS PAST. 

The things past are rewritten in sign language or cryptic 
signals. This is therefore a double writing. The past supports 
the story of the future as shadow supports substance. It is 
represented as a book in the right hand of Him that sat upon 
the throne "written both within and on the back.'^ The past 
thus becomes the divine prologue expressed in occult or cryp- 
tic signs as the basis of the divine apologue of the things of 
"the hereafter'' told in allegory and symbol of the hero, the 
divine Logos. The substance of the past becomes shadow of 
things future. The things unknown and future are to be ex- 
pressed by "the things that do appear." The future is by this 



26 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

means shown to be an enlargement, or fulfillment of the past. 
They are thus written together and co-ordinate as parts of one 
great whole. We read it as we would read the waiting on a 
palimpsest where we can trace the old dim letters lying un- 
der the new as a pattern, the new has followed but heightened 
in effect. Only by the clear recognition of the division of 
time into past, present and future, can we find ground that 
will support the subject matter. This is the division not of 
chronological, neither of logical, but of intensely Christologi- 
cal time, the division of sacred epochs. 

The story must illustrate the thesis ^^I am the Alpha and 
the Omega, the ruler of the kings of the earth, who was in 
the beginning with the Father.^^ We are to deal with Eeve- 
lation time so fixed that even the name of the Almis^hty is 
broken into three divisions and made to yield to its purpose. 
John is told to "write the things which are and which thou 
sawest, and which shall come to pass hereafter," just as we 
have seen the spirit and the church, and the stars yield their 
numeral values to a ncAv office they are to serve in illustrat- 
ing the new magnitudes of spiritual commensuration in the 
purposes of the Almighty. But it completes the assurance of 
the beginning and on-going and consummation of time to find, 
as we do, that the name of the Almighty undergoes a change 
with the end of Eevelation time. In its earlier occurrences, 
i, 4-8 and 4-8, three times Ave read "Him that IS and WAS 
and IS TO COME." But at a point in the story where His com- 
ing is declared to have occurred, the future is dropped and 
we have only "HE that IS and WAS," xi, 17 and xvi, 5. By this 
mighty sign is the present and the future and the on-going 
of time signified and assured. He is the First and the Last 
and His is the story of all time. This is even further pledged 
by the uplifted hand of the angel of God when he swears that 
"w^hen the seventh trumpet is about to sound, then is finished 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 27 

all the promises which God made to His servants, the prophets/' 

But these divisions of time receive subdivisions in the two 
major series, the Seals and the Trumpets, and are confirmed 
later, in other two series to be considered in their respective 
places in the field of vision yet before ns. These are not to 
be argued, but only to be seen, for we are following a seer and 
not a logician. We shall not need the logical mind so much 
as the seeing heart. We are warned of some unusual method, 
and a blessing is offered to him that reads and keeps the words 
written therein. John says, "And when I saw Him I fell at 
His feet as one dead. And He laid His right hand upon me 
saying, 'fear not, I am the first and the last, and the Living 
One and I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and 
have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things 
which thou sawest and the things which are and the things 
which shall come to pass hereafter.' " 

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right 
hand and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the 
angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks are the 
seven churches. 

This closes for the present the words of Christ's direct com- 
mission to John. He will next speak to His churches. His 
explanation of the mystery of the seven stars leaves us still 
wondering, no nearer an understanding than when He called 
those angels only stars. What other names have they besides 
"stars" and "angels?" That we shall presently see. Himself 
He clearly reveals. "I am He that was dead and behold I am 
alive forevermore." He that loved us and washed us from 
our sins in His own blood and made us to be a kingdom and 
to be priests unto our God. His enemies once cast lots for 
His garment, but now He is clothed in a white garment down 
to the foot and girt about the loins with a golden girdle they 



28 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

cannot toucli. His head and hair once flecked with blood are 
now fleecy as triple white, "white as wool and as white as 
snow." His eyes once dim with tears are like flames of fire, 
and his feet that trod the wine-press of man's wrath alone, 
now gleam like molten brass in the furnace. Like a lamb dumb 
before his shearer. He opened not His mouth before His ac- 
cusers, but now there proceeds out of His mouth a sharp two- 
edged sword with which to smite the nations; and His voice, 
once but a monotone, is now like the sound of many waters. 
There He is walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks, 
the churches here in this world, and holds aloft in His right 
hand His stars to whom He said, "No man shall be able to 
pluck you out of my hand," and here the last and lone star 
in Patmos says, "And He laid His right hand upon me and 
said ^fear not.' " How close are the candlesticks, the stars and 
the lamp-keeper! We have to keep thg parts intelligible. He 
walks in the midst and holds His stars in His right hand. Lo- 
calities are effaced as if heaven and earth were annexed without 
a seam or line to mark. John is in the spirit, and yet in 
Patmos; Christ is walking in the midst of the churches, which 
are here in the earth in seven cities, and yet in sight and in 
hearing and in touch of John. It is vision, it is a mystery; 
we cannot divide between the things known by sense, and the 
things known by faith. The groundling may not see. The 
lines between the sensible and the spiritual are absent. Here 
are seven cities of Asia and Patmos named, but beyond these, 
and the name of John we shall not find again, either a place 
or a personality named. But we will keep a close watch upon 
Christ and His associate powers, the seven stars, the seven spirits, 
and the seven churches which are so closely related to Him. 
Christ's number alone has not yet changed. The Almighty name 
is given in three; the Spirit, and the Church and the Apostles are 
all in sevens. Neither time nor death separates Christ from His 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 29 

apostles and churclies. We shall meet with his proper name no 
more till the mystery be ended^ and never again with His 
apostles only as they can be seen through new symbol names 
that exi^ress their relations to Him. To them He said "Lo, 
I am with yon alway to the end of the world." AYe are now 
to note well that Christ has explained to us three mysteries: 
The one spirit as seven spirits before His throne^ the seven 
candlesticks are the seven churches, and the seven stars which 
are the seven angels to the seven churches are the Apostles. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

The Revelation: To show; to signify; the open door; to break 
seals; to sound trumpets; to hold the book open; voice of seven 
thunders; to seal not up; to eat the book. 

Alpha and Omega: The Lord God, which is and which was and 
which is to come; the Almighty. 

Jesus Christ: The faithful witness; first born of the dead; 
Ruler of the kings of the earth; the beginning of the creation of 
God; the A4pha and Omega; bright morning star; root of David; 
Lion of tribe of Judah; Michael; ascending angel, etc. 

The Holy Spirit: Seven spirits before His throne; seven advo- 
cates of seven letters; seven lamps of fire; seven horns and seven 
eyes; seal of living God; breath of life from God; fire in judgments; 
fire blending with sea. 

Seven Churches: Candlesticks; lamps of fire; seven horns and 
seven eyes; the great multitude no man can number; the Holy City; 
Beloved City; the temple; the tabernacle; holy woman; Mount Zion; 
the bride; the Lamb's wife; the virgin; marriage supper of the 
Lamb; camp of the saints; the first resurrection; the kingdom of 
heaven; the New Jerusalem. 

Seven Stars: Seven angels to the churches; the apostles; seven 
trumpeters; seven voices of thunder; seven bowls of wrath; the 
elders. 



This diagram shows the two books. 

The letters which were Christ's own were open letters and 
are referred to as being written on the outside of the book "in 
the right hand of him that sat npon the throne/' 

THE TWO BOOKS. 



s 


CHRIST'S 
SEVEN 
OPEN 
LETTERS 

OF THINGS 
PRESENT. 

Chaps, i-iii. 


THE FATHER'S 

SEVEN 

SEALED LETTERS 

OF "THINGS THAT SHALL COME TO PASS 
HEREAFTER." 

Chaps. V to xxii. 


^ 



30 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTM; 



CHAPTEE II. 

Revelation II and III. 

THE LETTER WRITER. 

Here in the beautiful letters we meet with things highly 
structural and orderly. Here are seven letters written to seven 
churches in seven actual cities in Asia Minor representing their 
conditions at that time in the deepest realism. They are ad- 
dressed in care of seven angel carriers, and are plead by seven 
spirits advocate, and, strangely indeed, are written by seven 
writers. These recurrences of seven and their application to 
things known to have different numeral values raises the num- 
ber seven again into some mystic, some spiritual import. The 
one spirit raised to seven, the many churches and the twelve 
apostles, called stars and angels, lowered to seven; and now 
we have also the Christ raised to seven. He avoids naming 
himself by his usual titles, but impersonates regal and priestly 
offices. A transcendent note of lofty import is signified by 
this bringing together of heavenly offices to a common or 
equivalent sign. Christ loses the unit of His personality and 
becomes for the time seven authors by seven times impersonat- 
ing Himself mystically and functionally in seven wondrous 
writings. . 

There is some hidden purpose which compels these numerals 
to break from their common and known value to carry forward 
the new and exalted theme. Christ and His apostles and 
His churches and the Spirit have found their common sign in 
the symbol seven. These are the heavenly powers in conflict 
with the pawers of sin. Of the series or categories coming in 



oft, THE RIVEN VEIL. 3l 

the sign of seven we have five that are primary and all the 
others are secondary. 

The primary are The Seven Letters, the Seven Seals and the 
Seven Evangels, the Seven Trumpets and the Seven Avengers. 

The seven letters show seven authors, seven angels, seven 
spirits, seven candlesticks, seven warnings, seven promises, etc. 

The seven Seals have seven openings, and He that opens them 
has seven horns and seven eyes "which are the seven spirits 
of God sent out into all the earth," and the seven Evangels 
which supplement the Seals, as negative to positive also having 
seven parts acted. The seven Trumpets have seven soundings, 
and the Avengers have also seven supplementary and negative 
parts to these. 

The secondary, or complementary sevens are such as the 
seven blessings, the seven ascriptions of praise, seven warn- 
ings, seven promises, etc. Reference to a Bible concordance 
will astonish any one who had never noticed that in addition 
to all the series of seven parts, there are so many words that 
occur just seven timics, or some multiple of seven times in the 
book. Such words as "altar," "blessed," "Christ," "earth- 
quake," "white," "king," "holy," "Jesus," "patience," "worthy," 
"reign," "star," "Lord," "nations," "cloud," "saints," "come 
quickly," "God," "prophesy," "miracle," "candlestick," etc. 

]N"o one can help feeling deeply that upon some principle 
hitherto undiscerned, the work is in a high degree structural, 
regular and orderly. But how does it articulate? A world of 
wasted labor has been spent in trying to arrange it on our 
chronology by a wild and impalpable guessing on historical 
parallelisms. We find in these letters Christ and His associates 
in the most interesting positions and transpositions; the Christ, 
His apostles. His Spirits and His churches. How divinely He 
varies His impersonations. "These things saith He that hath 
the seven stars in His right hand. He that walketh in the midst 



32 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

of the seven golden candlesticks." "These things saith the first 
and the last which was dead and lived again." "These things 
saith the Son of God who hath His eyes like a flame of fire 
and His feet like nnto burnished brass, etc." But observe he 
addresses the apostles all in stereotyped phrase. "To the angel 
of the church at Ephesus." "To the angel of the church at 
Smyrna, etc." The spirit also speaks seven times in stereo- 
typed but imploring words to the individual members, saying, 
"Let him that hath an. ear hear what the spirit saith to the 
churches." But the inspiring promises with which they close 
like the impersonal signatures at the opening, are variant, 
changing with each letter by functional autographs, thus, "To 
him that overcometh to him will I give to eat of the tree of 
life." "To him that overcometh shall not be hurt of the sec- 
ond death." "To him that overcometh I will give to eat of 
the hidden manna, etc." 

The diversifying of these parts belongs to its unique and 
charming method. Christ's supremacy stands forth by these 
pleasing distinctions. He is author and finisher. The apostles 
are addressed as the angels in form without personal or func- 
tional distinction as simply bearers of the messages, and the 
Spirit does not vary His words of warning. The churches are 
different in their several conditions, and while each preserves 
its own autonomy, they yet show that they were regarded in 
these letters as a part of a larger design. The failure to see 
that Christ and His apostles were brought within the signal 
meaning of seven, as well as the Spirit and the Church, has 
impeded successful inquiry hitherto. This is the solvent fact 
at the opening. We easily recognize the Christ by His nom 
de plumes, but while His proper name, Jesus, occurs five times, 
and the name Christ three times in the first chapter, they do 
not occur again till the end of the Seals and Trumpets, xi, 15. 
The one Christ has become seven authors, etc., and the one 



OR, THE RIVEN VETL. 33 

Spirit the seven spirits of God, and the seven churches and 
seven apostles find their common symbol in seven — not now 
a numeral value as expressing tribal headships, but as a new 
spiritual genesis, as members of the commonwealth of heaven. 
To His apostles Christ had said, '"Xo, I am with you alway 
to the end of the world."' ''Xo man shall be able to pluck 
you out of my hand.'' They were His chosen stars kept in His 
Father's name while He was with them, but now in the apo- 
theosis of Apocalyptic vision, they appear in function only, 
and in form — stars in His right hand when He walks in the 
midst of the golden candlesticks, ^nd carriers, bearing the let- 
ters to the seven churches when He writes, in the same mystic 
sense that He is Himself walking in their midst. We shall 
soon follow them again where they will hold the same analogous 
relations to Him in the Seals opening of the greater sealed 
message to follow, and so on to the end they will keep their 
unchanging relation as His cabinet of administration. As they 
bore the Gospel of love at the first as His ambassadors so ihey 
continue to supplement His ministry to the world in the things 
to be hereafter, though neither He nor they are bodily pres- 
ent. They are in His hand and bear the letters and publish 
the broken seals, etc., in future just as they bore the oral mes- 
sage in their persons while on earth. Their commission is uni- 
versal and perpetual, but only mystical and functional, and not 
personal henceforth. His apostles, His churches and the spirits 
are the heavenly forces associate with Him about this story. 
It must be well noted how firmly their separate but correspond- 
ent parts are stamped upon these letters. All the initial parts 
are Christ's. He is the protagonist, both the Alpha and the 
Omega, the author and finisher. He alone differentiates His 
titles. His parts and His promises, the others are uniform as 
yet in their respective functions, but vre shall presently see them 
acting separately. The apostles have lost their old tribal num- 
3 



H MYSTERY OF TtiE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

ber twelve, and have lost their personalities in their common 
relation to Him, their office only to remain through all changes 
as the Eevelation proceeds. 

Both as stars in His right hand, and as letter carriers, and 
in one other instance presently to appear, the apostles are un- 
differentiated and impersonal, and perform the same part. The 
sinking of their personalities from sight raises to view the office 
of their Master and shows their subordination. These apostles, 
called stars and angels to the churches, etc., act a common part 
without blame or praise or other reference to any personal part 
they may have taken in the sins of the churches which He re- 
proves. If they had been in militant relations with these 
churches as shepherds responsible for their spiritual condition, 
they could not have escaped a word of warning for their part 
in these delinquencies; but they are entirely passive and min- 
isterial and mystic. It is only in form, and they continue their 
relations to Christ as though they were still alive and active 
just as Christ is represented as alive and here walking in the 
midst of the churches on earth and laying His hand upon the 
trusting exile. 

The revelator here effaces all minor distinctions, and so raises 
the glory of his hero. The Christ unites with Himself all the 
heavenly powers to carry on His work of conquest. His title, 
"Alpha and Omega," co-ordinates Him with creation and re- 
demption as John had already done in his gospel. He is here 
in these letters first called the "Beginning of the creation of 
God," iii, 14. Now creation that was begun with the view to 
human redemption, was expressed in seven days. Whether 
these were periods of time or days of vision of time by Moses, 
they here meet the higher office of being symbolic days. There 
are seven days of creation, and creation was made for man. It 
was with a view to the redemption in Christ that God said 
"Behold I create all things new/' xxi, 5. He is both Alpha 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 35 

and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the new Cre- 
ator. He completes in spirit what material creation had in 
view. That creation was but a prophecy of the spiritual. 
Christ "was slain before the foundation of the world/^ xiii, 8. 
"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God 
and the word was God. By Him were all things made, and 
without Him was nothing made.'' Now as that first creation 
was expressed in seven days, He who comes wearing the names 
of all power and authority in heaven and in earth, comes in 
the symbol seven — creation's number. Not only has it the 
content of creation, but also of its prophecy and is the greater 
outcome and fullness of redemption. Seven is therefore the 
signature in which this great psalm is written. It unites Christ 
with creation and all creative power, and prophesies its glorious 
consummation. TTith Him are associated, in carrying forth the 
emprise of His kingdom. His apostles in form, but His saints in 
fact, who represent His mission to the Kingdoms of men. His 
saints are in full co-ordination with Him. Their names are 
written in His book "who was slain for them before the founda- 
tion of the world." Hence, His number and the number of all 
that pertains to Him is seven — the sign of creation and redemp- 
tion; and in this sign all the heavenly powers are written. 
Christ and the spirit raised to seven, and the apostles and the 
churches lowered to seven.* There they form a mystic, a spirit- 
ual equation by the use of which the new magnitudes of the 
wondrous story is to be expressed about the newly risen king 
who is to proceed against the enemy. Seven is the unit of 
heavenly power. The apostles, the Spirit and the saints are 
the factors, and they are to act both a common part as in 
these letters, and also their several parts in the great drama 
that is to unroll to our vision. Each factor represents the 
totality of the divine commission. Upon the form and upon the 
credit of the first creation, by a methodical transcendental and 



36 MYSTERY OF TKE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

mystic discourse Christ appears as seven authors in these seven 
letters with seven spirits advocate^ seven apostolic stars^ and 
seven golden churches, the sum total of the heavenly forces 
in action to complete the work and design of creation. The 
material creation is here subordinate to the spiritual and serves 
as the pattern or form for its expression. Hence we have a 
double wTiting. We have a superscription and under it a sub- 
scription, a dim occult sign writing, we call the 

GREAT CRYPTOGRAPH. 

The Eevelation is written double. It is underlaid by a 
cryptogramic system. John is told to ^Svrite the things which 
are and the things thou sawest — past, and the things which 
shall come to pass hereafter.'^ The writing of the past and 
the future in one message is like a dead tree covered with a 
living vine. The tree is not seen, but is discerned by its form, 
and the vine which is open to the sight has a form not its own, 
and so is a mystery. The tree is dead and cryptic, but im- 
parts its form to the living vine, so that we see the vine and 
discern the tree at the same moment and can meditate their 
mutual relations and dependence. This is not only a double 
writing as to time past and future, but it is a septenary as to 
division of work as the seven days of creation given by Moses. 
This is the base of its spiritual genesis and eschatology, and so 
governs its greater articulation. Creation is the tree on which 
the living vine of the future was and is laid. All the series of 
seven reassert Creation, and prophesy its spiritual perfection 
in the signal seven. The living pregnant future is written 
upon the obsolete past; prediction is based on fact; "things 
which shall come to pass hereafter" are given upon the form 
and credit of things that were, and that remain to testify their 
verity; things unknown are to be seen in the light of "the 
things that do appear." 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 37 

This identification of design entirely passes the line of con- 
jecture when we come to see that the Almighty's labors, given 
to the Alpha and the Omega in the opening of the seven Seals, 
is patterned exactly on the seven days of creation. The six 
labor Seals, which no one but He was able to break, are fol- 
lowed by a seventh, which is a sabbath rest. "And when He 
had opened the seventh Seal there was silence in heaven for 
about the space of half an hour." Creation is the fact and 
form and prophecy upon which "the new heavens and the new 
earth'' are foretold, and the Alpha and the Omega, the First 
and the Last, the Beginning and the End, is Himself the 'New 
Creator, made higher than the heavens for carrying forward 
upon the prestige of all visible and created things, that Gospel 
begun at Jerusalem to be heralded forth till the old groaning 
creation shall find in Him its glorious consummation of peace, 
joy, and Sabbath rest. We cannot enter the study of these 
letters without these preparatory words. 

It is here we take our first lesson in that synthetic continuity 
which marks the genius of the Golden Cloth. I know of no 
interpreter who has more than touched the border of its mighty 
current. It is a composite of time and of divine substance with 
Christ as vignette in bold relief. There is an entire absence 
of diffusion or trace of vagrancy, but instead a gathering 
together of yHslI spiritual truth which bears the mind and 
heart to the lofty conception of that story of the ages by a 
road logic cannot travel; by heights which man's words cannot 
reach; where the wing of faith only can scale its heights; where 
the joyful believer, seeing Him by a truer vision, may rest in 
hope. We must not only conceive deeply and broadly to com- 
pass the relations of our hero to all time as the field within 
which the fortunes of the race of man are written with him, 
but keep account of the divine offices in which and by which 
he is to act till the end. We are here at the fountain head 



38 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

of streams which gather and swell and move onward till they 
flow a single crystal river to gladden the city of our God, the 
New Jerusalem. 

THE DOUBLE WRITING. 

We are told that John saw in the right hand of Him that 
sat on the throne a book written within and on the back, v, 1. 
We are to read a double writing. Every w^ord shall be estab- 
lished by two witnesses, not in order to conceal, not to mystify, 
but to deepen, to unify the things past, present, and to come, 
into one; to establish the unity of God and the trinity and 
manifestation of His power by a double witness not to be gain- 
said. Such wondrous purpose has the "Revelation of Jesus 
Christ which God gave to Him to show to His servants.^' We 
must expect some plan commensurate with these exalted pur- 
poses and far- removed from the accidents of a dream. When 
God was about to give His Revelation to Israel, He said to 
Moses in the mount, "See thou make all things according to 
the pattern showed thee in the mount." In like manner the 
exile in Patmos is given a pattern according to which he weaves 
the cloth of divine verities wherein is contained in mystery 
the truth of the oncoming ages till all be finished. This pat- 
tern consists of the things that were, but rewritten or signified 
now in sign language. It is the essence and heart of sacred 
history clothed upon with a divine prescience of the future 
oncoming struggle. All that is past becomes shadow, the future 
alone is substance. All is to find its true meaning and fruition 
in this hope of "the things which must come to pass hereafter.^' 
This distinct dualism is sustained by profound analogies con- 
stantly to appear as we proceed. 

These seven letters have a double authorship, Christ and the 
Spirit. "Let him that hath an ear hear what the spirit saith 
to the churches," is added to the impersonal authorship of each 
letter. The four living creatures around the throne are replete 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 39 

with eyes^ both within and without, iv, 8. The great series 
of Seals and Trumpets are a double, one being an inside and 
initial, the other an outside and supplemental view. The sword 
that proceeds out of His mouth to slay the nations is two- 
edged. This doubling is a part of the divine method. It has 
a Avondrous confirmation in the great dreams and visions of 
the Bible that have to do with the future time. Joseph had 
two dreams that foretold his and his family's future. The 
first dream was of the eleven sheaves that did obeisance to his 
sheaf; and the second was, the vision of the eleven stars and 
the sun and moon that did honor to him. The vision was 
double, but the lesson was one. King Pharaoh also had two 
dreams. The first was of the seven lean cattle that came up 
and devoured the seven fat cattle. And the second was the 
seven blighted ears of corn that consumed the seven full ears. 
Joseph was called upon to interpret these dreams. He said, 
"The dream of Pharaoh is . one. God hath showed Pharaoh 
what He is about to do, and for that the dream was doubled 
unto thee, it is because the thing is established of God and God 
will shortly bring it to pass." So it had been in Joseph's own 
experience, two dreams, but one lesson. The doubling was the 
assurance that it came from God. Again, that most wonder- 
ful of all visions, given to the monarch Nebuchadnezzar con- 
cerning all ages, was also doubled and the more remarkable 
that both the vision and its true interpretation were given to 
him through the captive Daniel. Joseph Daniel and John, 
all prisoners of the world powers in exile, are given visions 
of the future concerning the will of God among men, and all 
these are double. All this dualism finds harmony in the two 
tables of stone on which the law of Ten Commandments were 
written, and in the two covenants to Abraham, and back of all 
these there were two trees in the Garden of Eden, one repre- 
senting life and the other death. This duality is so pervasive 



40 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

in the Apocalypse we shall see its track all the way. It is one 
of those threads which greatly assists our search. It was more 
the feeling of this synthesis and persisting continuity of spir- 
itual essence through all outward diversities than a clear per- 
ception of its larger bearings that raised to view the imagery 
and suggestion of a threaded cloth in the earlier studies of the 
author. This is that genius of the book which must be grasped, 
or all is lost. These threads are the elements of its unity and 
continuity and climax. The intelligibility of the book is 
enhanced by the effacement from our minds while reading it of 
a great body of refinements and distinctions of which it is 
oblivious. It is a picture book suited to a child's imagination, 
but with a depth of spiritual perspective and a profundity 
nowhere else to be found. There were many other things 
which Jesus said and did which John had not space to write 
in his Gospel, but here is a method he knew not of then. 
He writes now as he is told, while another guides and shows 
the way. That was the gospel according to John and ended 
with a regret for its necessary omissions; but this is our Lord's 
own gospel given to him from God. It opens with a blessing 
on him that reads it, and closes with a curse upon him who 
shall either add to or take away any of its words. It tells 
the whole story. No regretful omission this time. 

Looking carefully into these seven letters, we notice first 
their insep^rableness. They are complementary, each con- 
taining a part of the sum total of what he wanted to say to all 
churches. While they have a decided autonomy, marked by 
special conditions, they have an equally noted unity. They 
represent the things that were then present. Taken together, 
they form but a part of a larger plan. Their diversity is to be 
found in their different conditions and their environments 
that are telling against them. They are diverse in their inter- 
nal conditions. They are united in the great common bond. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 41 

1 : By the distribution among them of the sum of Christ's titles 
and functions as "These things saith He that was dead and 
lived again;" "These things saith He that hath the two-edged 
sword/' etc. 2: They are united as one message by the sum 
total of His promises thus, "To him that overcometh will I 
give to eat of the tree of life;" "He that overcometh shall 
not be hurt of the second death/' etc. 3: They are united 
by being addressed through an impersonal angel and by the^ 
same voice of the Spirit, "To him that hath an ear to hear, 
etc." 

The part acted by the seven angels, apostles, in these letters, 
is uniform, ministerial and impersonal, while that acted by 
Christ is initial, variant, multiple and authoritative. The let- 
ters are addressed to the angels, but they teach and warn the 
churches and make the promises to the individuals in the 
churches; and the spirit appeals to the individuals to hear 
what Christ in the Spirit is saying to the churches. So these 
functions are interwoven and divinely mystic. These letters 
were never separated, were never sent as seven letters to seven 
churches independently; and no militant church officer, as 
elder or deacon, or bishop, is to be presumed ever to have 
borne them as such. They are each and all designed for all 
the seven churches as to their general elements, their special 
dealings with the seven churches, being subordinate to a gen- 
eral design and together forming only a part of the entire work. 
These letters are cemented in the following manner: 

1. They contain matters named, which have no explanation 
till we reach the last chapters of the book where they belong, 
but are given here without explanation as though we knew 
them. Such are "the second death," "the hidden manna/' 
"the New Jerusalem," etc. 

2. There are seen within these churches and their environ- 
ments, governing conditions and evil powers that swell into 



43 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the great struggle that occupies the great middle and latter 
part of the book and which carried the churches down with 
it. In using the symbol seven, these letters show the fact of 
double writing, for every use of seven is a rewriting or reasser- 
tion of creation. They deal with the things then current, "the 
things that are.'' 

3. These letters use historic names symbolically, thus show- 
ing again their deep relation to the genius of the book; 
we have Balaam and Jezebel and Jews, etc., all symbolic. The 
following observed order of composition of the letters illus- 
trates a higher order of teaching: 

1. Address, "To the angel of the church at, etc." 

2. Signature, "These things saith he that hath, etc." 

3. Commendation, "I know thy works, etc." 

4. Instruction, "I have a few things against thee, etc." 

5. Exhortation, "Eepent therefore and do thy, etc." 

6. Spirit Advocate, "Let him that hath an ear, etc." 

7. Promise, "To him that overcometh will I give, etc." 

While all these parts are not equally distinct in all the 
letters, most of them are, and two of them draw our atten- 
tion by their mystic and remarkable transposition of order. 
These are items 6 and 7. In the first three letters, the Spirit 
advocate comes first, while in the four following He comes 
last. 

The following skeleton of the letters will show this to the 
eye. The Spirit uses the same form in each of the letters, 
saying, "Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit says 
to the churches," and the other part is the promise of Christ, 
"To him that overcometh, etc," thus: 

EPHESUS, SMYRNA, PEROAMOS, THYATIRA, 

Let him, Let Mm, Let Mm, To Mm, 

To Mm, To Mm, To Mm, Let Mm, 

SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, LAODICEA, 

To Mm To Mm, To Mm, 

Let Mm, Let Mm, Let Mm. 



THE REVELATION. 



, OF THE CHURCH AT TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH AT TO THE , 



1 of God. who These things i 



- r 



t 






\- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 43 

Here is Christ in promise ascending, and the Spirit as advo- 
cate, descending. It is not accident nor carelessness, but de- 
signed and regular. Having made the transfer, they remain 
in these positions to the close. This is the second bold trans- 
position, and it warns iis of others to follow. It is a method 
of teaching by situations. We are here notified that we are 
to study a work thoroughly and deeply designed. We shall 
not find a trace of the vagrant or rambling. It was with the 
purpose of maintaining its perfect structure inviolate that it 
closes with a curse pronounced upon him who shall add to or 
take away from the words of the prophecy of this book. It 
can suifer no tampering and ever be understood. It cannot 
be studied with a vievr to bolstering any theory and ever give 
forth its true oracle. The transposition here noticed signifies 
the ascension of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit. 
Its occurring between the third and the fourth letters is our 
first warning that the great series of sevens are all divided into 
groups of three and four. This is the first manifestation of 
the governing power of that great cryptic writing which rules 
the order and arrangement of the subject matter and which is 
a confirmation of its divine original by methods greater than 
the rules of reasoning, greater than seeing. Alas! that we 
should have to call that a sealed book which John was com- 
manded to seal not up. Here already is a glory of literary 
excellence exceeding the limited power of mortals to produce 

THE ELEMENTS. 

The leading elements of interest to notice in these letters 
are: 

1. Anticipation: There is a bringing forward of matters 
that seem to belong to a later place in the story. The earlier 
and latter parts of the book have a very noticeable resem- 
blance. The composition here is more in harmony with the 



44 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

New Testament style. In the first three and the last three 
chapters there is a lowering of that symbolic altisonance which 
characterizes the intermediate part. "The tree of life/' "The 
second death/' and "The New Jerusalem/' etc., found in their 
natural place in the latter part of the book with explanations, 
are found here by anticipation in these letters. 

2. Impersonation: Which plays so important a plact in the 
method of treatment, has its beginning in these letters. Be- 
ginning with these, we miss the names, Jesus and Christ, not 
to appear again till the mystery is finished. Here, however, 
we still see locations, the seven cities, where are the seven 
churches, but they are related to spiritual elements without 
a seam to mark, but are strangely and invisibly blent. Our 
minds at first refuse to recognize the truth, which has neither 
locality, nor personality, nor date. Yet if we stop to think we 
know our greatest thoughts are neither personal, local nor 
chronological. Henceforth, personalities and localities appear 
only in a hiystery. Though we miss the personal in these 
letters, there is no other writing that appeals so directly and 
pointedly to the heart or that is so penetrating as their w^arn- 
ings and promises. "To him that overcometh will I give to 
sit down with Me on My Father's throne." "I will give him 
a new name written on a white stone which no one shall ever 
know but he that receiveth it." He shall walk with me in 
wdiite, etc. It is almost calling you by name. It calls you by 
duties you are conscious of doing or neglecting. 

3. Satanic Element: Satan had already his seat of power in 
two of the places where these churches were located, Smyrna 
and Pergamos. That power grows as we proceed and swells into 
the great beast power that overcomes the saints and that bore 
the apostate church as a drunken harlot into the wilderness. 
Ephesus also had those who pretended to be apostles, but who 
were tried and proved to be liars. Philadelphia had those who 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 45 

blasphemed in claiming to be Jews (Christians) and were not. 
Pergamos had those who held the doctrine of Balaam and 
Th3^atira was troubled with a Jezebel who falsely claimed to 
be a prophetess. 

4. Eetribution: Besides the great variety and beauty of the 
promises found in these letters to be noticed in another place 
we notice the variety of chastisements and correctives. They 
preclude the possibility of what we call literal punishments and 
show how wide the range of Oriental imagery here used. To 
the church at Ephesus He says^ "Repent and. do thy first works 
or else I come to thee and will move thy candlestick out of its 
place." But to the unruly at Pergamos He said, "I will make 
war against them with ilve sword of my mouth." Against the 
followers of Jezebel He says, "Behold I will cast her and 
they that are with her into a bed of great tribulation, and I 
will kill her children with death." To the church at Sardis 
He says, "I will come upon you as a thief and ye shall not 
know what hour I will come." Of those at Philadelphia who 
claimed they were Jews and were not He says, "I will make 
them to come and worship at thy feet and to know that I 
have lov^d thee." But to the lukewarm church at Laodicea He 
says, "Because ye are neither hot nor cold I will spew you 
out of my mouth." 

5. Mystic Element: Most wonderful is the fusion or 
blending of the mystic element with the obvious; the occult 
with the ocular. The boundary line fixed in our mind between 
these is here entirely effaced. Our mental horizon, limited to 
the discernment of truth by the usual exercise of our senses, 
is the veil over our face when we would read this mystic master- 
piece. It is the first work of the Revelation to remove this 
veil and in these letters the author grades the way to it. That 
line of distinction between the sensible and mystical may be 



46 MYSTEHY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

dim and may even defy close definition^ but it is a fixed obstacle 
to our readily reading a book that entirely ignores it. 

The tangible and the intangible are blent at points we can- 
not detect, and the mind accustomed to separate these by a 
deep mental gulf falters to enter upon a field where their 
presence is not. This is that dread entrance which all feel 
who would enter. We weakly despair of finding intelligibility 
where these lines of the sensible so fade away into the mystic 
and spiritual. But that is our task; we are to see two con- 
tinents which we know, one by sight and the other by faith, 
annexed at a point we cannot discern. A mingled horizon 
unites them as night lightens into day. But our joy begins 
with finding, not that we have lost the visible, but have 
gained the invisible to a new appreciation. It is out of this 
situation that a revolt is raised in the mind against the Eeve- 
lation that results in agnosticism and discards this greatest 
book as a sealed and foreboding message; and its would-be 
interpreter, a lunatic. What a resurrection as from the dead 
the church will experience when the veil shall be taken away! 
What a new realization of the divine life may quicken the 
3vangelization of the world! 

Whoever has seen the panorama of the battle of Gettysburg, 
or its like, in a cycloramic painting will remember the sight 
of fencing rails and an actual shock of wheat standing in its 
own stubble in the foreground of the scene almost near enough 
to lay the hand upon, and the painted fields of shocked wheat 
joined to the real one at some point which the eye was not able 
to detect, all composing the one scene of the field of battle. 
This effacement by .the artist of that line which the mind is 
accustomed to draw between art and nature produces a realis- 
tic effect upon the heart never to be forgotten, for we seem 
face to face with the real battlefield itself and not with art. 
Though we know from reflection that we are not on the actual 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 47 

field of battle, yet we feel strongly that we are, and that we 
are looking at something more than a mere picture. Now 
what we there experience in realism over a mere painting by 
the obliteration of onr mental distinction between nature and 
art we experience in a multiplied degree when in the Eevela- 
tion we miss the line we were accustomed to draw between the 
sensible and tangible on one hand, and the invisible and intan- 
gible on the other. The effect is heightened many times here 
when, instead of seeing horses and men standing statuesque, 
as in the cyclorama, we see all in action as a living drama, 
the drama of the world's redemption in fact, ourselves engaged 
in it. 

As Moses had to draw a veil over his face to screen the 
effulgent glory he bore from the divine presence, and as that 
veil became in figure the blindness of the Jews, who could look 
only upon the past, not discerning what it portended of the 
future, so we both by looking too much upon the past, and 
by fixing refinements and limits in our minds, have veiled 
our understandings so we could not see to the end of the 
Gospel. We have to overcome this stubborn habit of arbitrary 
distinctions that we may see the larger field by a transcending 
faith that sees no false lines of artifice. Its careful perusal 
will repay ten thousand times all the pains we give to its study. 
The distinction between the real and the mystic is taken away, 
and it all becomes awfully real. We shall be asking many ques- 
tions born of artificial refinements to which this book will give 
no answer. 

We look upon these seven churches and say they were located 
at Ephesus, Symrna, Pergamos, etc., known places in Asia 
Minor on this earth, and in the time of John's exile in Patmos, 
and that the respective differences in them are real, but the 
lines of their union with each other and all churches and with 
Christ and His apostles fade away into the mystic. 



48 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

John is in the isle of Patmos and is in the Spirit on the 
Lord's Day and is in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. He is 
separated from his fellow apostles by the imaginary line that 
divides two worlds, he being the only survivor on earth, and 
yet he himself must be of the seven stars whose personality is 
both asserted and his distinct office as revelator also shadowed 
at a later point in the book. We shall therefore see both the 
real John and the mystic, impersonal John through his func- 
tion. We miss the accustomed lines of distinction also when we 
see how invisibly the things that are local and peculiar to each 
of these churches and to each other and to all, are blent with 
the larger sealed letters and with the great body of the book. 
The view in which these churches is taken is microscopic in 
its minuteness and altoscopic, looking above and beyond them, 
for in a large sense all churches are included. 

The line that divides the literal from the symbol is not clear 
in these letters. We are strongly inclined at first to take 
Jezebel and Balaam and the Nicolaitanes as literal, and still 
more Antipas, "my witness, my faithful one, who was killed 
among you, etc.,'' and also those who claim to be Jews and are 
not. But it is not easy to say whether any of these are to 
be taken as literal. If Antipas is the proper name of a person 
who had lost his life for the witness of Christ, then we have 
one other, and only one othef mortal besides John mentioned 
or personally named in the entire book. When we have left 
these letters there remains no doubt of the entirely symbolic use 
of all names of persons, of places and of times. But in these 
letters the way is graded from the literal to the mystic and 
symbolic to prepare us for the hieroglyphics which are to follow. 

CLIMAX. 

The element of climax has its rise in these letters. In the 
first letter Christ is He who walks in the midst of the seven 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 40 

golden candlesticks and holds the seven stars in His right hand, 
etc., but in the last letter He is the Amen, the faithful and 
true witness. The Beginning of the Creation of God." In 
the first letter He says "repent" or else, "I will come to thee 
and will move thy candlestick out of its place except thou 
repent," but in the last. He is already at the door, "Behold I 
stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear My voice 
and open the door I will come in and sup with him and he with 
Me." The whole work is a climax ending in the glories of the 
new heaven and new earth. 

The gathering together of the names of the Almighty and 
of the titles of Jesus Christ, and in close union with Him of 
the apostles and churches and the Holy Spirit to be carried for- 
ward toward a grand climax at the end, is the lesson of these first 
three chapters to be kept steadily in view. There are elements 
and principles in these letters which appear and reappear as 
they pass through the animating groups of natural and super- 
natural and infernal things, in apparent misrule, but in reticu- 
lation like threads to the very last. By the aid of these in 
the light of that first experience in its study we will follow 
and see to it that the ornate embroidery into which each enters 
to form a part of a different figure, is but the mechanism within 
which the mystery is contained. 

That experience of the author is blended with the opening of 
this wondrous story by as close and seamless union as that 
which rmites John, the exile, to* the Revelation. 

Note. — There is in all this drama an on-going of mighty portents 
of the deep, infinite soundings in the consciousness of him who reads 
this story in which he notes the progress of something wondrous 
acting on the stage which he notes more by striking movements 
than by an intelligible and comprehensive sense of the meaning. 
To enter into a deep appreciation and enjoyment of the great vision 
one must realize truth by a kind of ecstacy which belongs neither 
4 



so MYSTEiRY OF THE 60LDE^f CLOTH; 

to the vagrancy of dreams nor to the usual superficial way of iden- 
tifying common things. 

The legend of the blind maid who led many of her friends from 
the perishing city when the ashes rained down in blinding torrents 
from the volcano illustrates my meaning. 

They could not see which way to go, but the blind maid knew 
the way by senses and experiences they had never used to identify 
the relations and proportions of objects and places. 

If it is not a kind of tranced state of the soul and spiritual 
rapture, it is certainly, at least, the farthest from a dream by a 
superb order and structure that exceeds the expanse of our ordinary 
plodding senses, and becomes a realization greater and more real 
than seeing and hearing with the external senses. 

"It delights me most of all to read St. John. There is in him 
something so entirely wonderful, twilight and night, and, through 
it, the swiftly darting lightning, a soft evening cloud and behind 
the cloud the soft full moon bodily; something so deeply, sadly pen- 
sive, so high, so full of anticipation, that we cannot have enough of 
it. It is as though I always saw him before me, lying on the bosom 
of his Master at the last supper; as though his angel were holding 
the light for me and in certain passages would fall upon my neck 
and whisper something in my ear. I am far from understanding 
everything which I read, but it seems to me that what John meant 
was floating before me in the distance, and even when I look into a 
passage altogether dark I have a foretaste of some great, glorious 
meaning which I shall one day understand; for this cause I grasp 
after every new interpretation of the writings of John. The most 
of them only crisp the evening cloud." — M. Claudius. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 51 

CHAPTER III. 

Revelation IV. 

THE ALPHA AND OMEGA.— THE NEW GENESIS. 

After these things I saw and beheld a door was open in heaven 
and the first voice which I heard was a voice as of a trumpet, one 
saying, come up hither and I will show thee things which must come 
to pass hereafter. 

Straightway I was in the Spirit: and behold there was a throne 
set in heaven, and one sitting upon the throne; and he that sat was 
to look upon like a jasper stone and a sardius; and there was a 
rainbow round about the throne, like an emerald to look upon. 
And round about the throne were four and twenty thrones; and 
upon the thrones I saw four and twenty elders sitting arrayed in 
white garments; and on their heads crowns of gold. And out of 
the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders And 
there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which 
are the seven Spirits of God; and before the throne as it were a 
glassy sea like unto crystal; and in the midst of the throne and 
round about the throne four living creatures full of eyes before 
and behind. And the first creature was like a lion and the sec- 
ond creature like a calf and the third creature had a face as 
of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And 
the four living creatures, having each one of them six wings, are 
full of eyes round about and within; and they have no rest day and 
night, saying, Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God Almighty which was 
and which is and which is to come. And when the living creatures 
shall give glory and honor and thanks to him that sitteth on the 
throne to him that liveth forever and ever the four and twenty 
elders shall fall down before him that sitteth on the throne and 
shall worship him that liveth forever and ever, and shall cast their 
crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou our Lord and our 
God to receive the glory and the honor and the power; for thou didst 
create all things and because of thy will they were, and were 
created. 



52 MYSTERY OE" the GOLDEN CLOTH; 

A bold transition marks onr passage from the letters to "the 
things which shall come to pass hereafter/^ The heart filled 
with high expectations by the symmetry and beauty of the 
seven letters here meets a repulse in the shocking incongruity 
of association. An open vista presents a group of objects that 
leave a mingled and confused thought and feeling upon the 
heart. A throne is set in heaven and there are four principal 
groups of objects about it. They are twenty-four elders, 
arrayed in white, sitting on subordinate thrones, and seven 
lamps of fire burning before it. A glassy sea is in repose, and 
four living creatures, shockingly called "beasts" in the common 
version which are around about the throne and in the midst 
of it. "One is like a lion, one like a calf, one has a face like 
a man, and one is like a flying eagle." The appearance of four 
brutish-looking creatures in this cast in the company of 
heavenly symbols offends our sentiment and is repellant to our 
sense of order, beauty and purity which was raised by the title 
chapter and by the seven open letters. These four creatures 
must engage our first attention. What are they to represent? 

First, we note their number is four, and they are associated 
with the seven candlesticks or lamps of fire, and with twenty- 
four elders and the throne, etc. They are "round about the 
throne and in the midst thereof." We notice that, while they 
are beastly in form, they are religious in practice, for they give 
praise to Him that sitteth upon the throne, saying, "Holy! 
holy! holy! art Thou Lord God Almighty." This is our first 
chant of praise and it is a strange paradoxical doxology. Over 
against their brutish appearance and names, and their number, 
there are these countervailing facts. First, they praise God 
day and night, and second, they are in good company, and 
third, they obey His Almighty power. Now these creatures 
are better named the four "living ones" or regenerated ones, 
and their contradictory - characteristics must represent them 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 53 

under changed conditions; that is, at different times. Their 
outward appearance shows what they were at one time while 
in rebellion, and their good company and obedience and praise 
to God, what they have come to be at the time here given, 
called, ''the things which shall come to pass hereafter." The 
rebel, thongh he is now become loyal, his body will still bear 
tlte marks and scars of sin and rebellion and continue to show 
us what he once was. 

This being the first appearance of the number four, we may 
adopt one of the methods of this book. Anticipation, and ad- 
vance upon our narrative to look for its recurrence. AVe find 
in the first four of the seals, which comprise the first group 
of seals, that we have four horses bearing four riders and 
accoutered in four different ways, and that the fourth horse 
was given authority over the fourth part of the earth to kill, 
and to kill in four different ways — with SAvord, with famine, with 
pestilence and with the wild beasts of the earth, and that these 
four horses were announced by the four living creatures saying 
to John, "Come and see." Here is a notably frequent use of 
four. A little further on, vii, 1, we have four angels standing 
on the four corners of the earth holding the four winds of the 
earth that ih'ey blow^ not on the earth, or sea, or trees. And 
again, ix, 14-15, we find our four angels bound in the great 
Eiver Euphrates, one of the four rivers that divided from 
the one river that parted into four heads outside the Garden 
of Eden, and these angels were prepared for four points of 
time ''for the hour, the day, the month, and the year to 
slay, etc." 

These recurrences of four at once raise the question whether 
the number four has not, like seven, a spiritual or symbol use 
analogous to that and whose signal value is to be demonstrated 
in the spiritual algebra as we proceed, and which shall play 
a correspondent but opposite part in the narration of the story 



54 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

which we assume this strange and forgotten old book to relate. 

Now in all these occurrences of four, except the first one 
in our text, it is entirely connected with earthly things, four 
horses on the earth, four angels standing on the earth holding 
the winds of the earth, and later they are bound in the great 
river Euphrates, tributary to Babylon, head of all world power. 
This one exception of their praising around the throne of God 
to their entirely earthly character points to their changed 
relations in time; points to a time in this story when they 
have become subject to "the ruler of the kings of- the earth," 
and serve Him. As no such association of things heavenly and 
beastly, praising and serving God together, has ever yet occurred 
in the world, it must point to a condition yet future and toward 
w^hich all the p'lst and the present are hopefully pointing. This 
is the true interpretation that the thing presented first, is that 
which is to occur last. It was so at the beginning. The first 
promise made to fallen man was that the w^oman's heir should 
bruise the serpent's head and that is still future. John here 
sees the last things first; he sees the triumph and fruition of 
the kingdom. So was Abraham's first covenant about Christ. 
And the first visions of Nebuchadnezzar and of Daniel and of 
Ezekiel were all about the final victory and glory of Christ. 

"Come up hither" means to come forward in time, not upward 
in space. And John beheld the Alpha has become the Omega. 
His reign is shown to be established over His enemies. They 
sit at His feet. They were dead in sins, but are now alive and 
are called the "living ones." In the three first chapters we had 
His death and resurrection and ascension and His titles and 
His letters to the seven churches, and now we see Him in His 
consummation. His kingdom. That this refers to the future, 
the last state, is shown in a three-fold manner: 

1. John was told to "come up here and I will show thee 
things which shall come to pass hereafter." 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 55 

2. The state of things presented had never occurred in 
this world. 

3. The praise and obedience of these four creatures about 
the throne point to a time when the kingdoms of men have 
become the kingdom of God and His Christ, and when He 
shall rule them with a rod of iron. He proceeds synthetically, 
giving the sum and conclusion first and then the changes that 
lead up to it in order. 

Now the number four bears the same kind of equational 
value in expressing the powers and kingdoms of men as seven 
bears in expressing the powers of the kingdom of God. It is 
a number in which the different properties and characteristics 
of the world kingdoms tind their common ground and unit of 
power. As the symbol four bears the same relative import 
when expressing the world powers as the symbol seven does 
when applied to the heavenly, we have all the elements of a 
great opposition identified, point and counterpoint, by the use 
of signals in reading this story; for we assume for the moment 
that the four living creatures represent the world powers — that 
is, the exercise of brute force over man by man as against the 
love and will of God. That is to say, as "seven" represents 
both creation and its outcome through the New Creator, so 
"four" represents the world fallen in sin and its outcome here 
through redemption in Christ. What relations these four living 
creatures may have to Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gen- 
tiles and the people of Israel who put Him to death and scat- 
tered abroad the sheep of His fold we shall presently see. The 
four living creatures, and the four horses, and the four world 
angels all have their sign in the symbol four. Everything in 
four is of one essential nature and adverse to everything in 
seven except in the conditions here, where they are of one 
accord about the one throne. While these several groups of 
four are diverse from each other the living creatures, the horses 



56 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

and the world angels, etc., tliey are one in their hostility to 
Christ and to all the heavenly powers that come under the 
sign of seven. They are different symbols for the same thing 
— that is, sinful and apostate man. But the four creatures 
about the throne show the condition of the end, the time yet 
future. The first universal empire of world power was the 
Babylonian and its head was Nebuchadnezzar. He had con- 
quered Jerusalem and had taken captive its people and had 
taken its treasures and the holy vessels from the temple, which 
he locked up in the treasure-house of his gods. 

Thus the kingdom of God as represented in the Jewish the- 
ocracy became subject to universal world power of beastly rule 
in idolatrous Babylon. While the monarch having dominion 
over the whole earth, mused in his heart what should be the 
future of his empire, God gave him a notable dream which 
alarmed and troubled his spirit. He said it had passed from 
him so he could not tell it to the wise men who were called 
upon to interpret it. He had four classes of wise men, the 
magicians, sorcerers, astrologers, and Chaldeans. These he 
required to tell both the dream and its interpretation on pain 
of death and on their failure to do so, he commanded them to 
be put to death. But Daniel, his captive, and the servant of 
God, offered to tell the dream and the interpretation to stay 
the king's hasty anger and to save both their lives and his 
own and to teach the king that "The most High ruleth in the 
kingdoms of men and setteth up over them the basest of men." 
Daniel said to the king "there is a God in heaven that revealeth 
secrets and maketh known to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, what 
shall be in the latter days." "As for thee, King, thy thoughts 
came into thy mind upon thy bed what shall come to pass 
hereafter." Now, God gave to Daniel for the purpose, both 
the dream and the interpretation of it. "Thou, King, sawest 
and behold a great image whose brightness was excellent, stood 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 57 

before thee. The form thereof was terrible. This image's 
head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms were of silver, 
his belly and his thighs were of brass and his legs of iron, and 
his feet part iron and part clay." This image is in four parts — 
first, the head; second, the breast, with the arms; third, the 
body, with the thighs, and, fourth, his legs, with the feet and 
toes. These four parts are distinguished as being of different 
metals and different parts, positions, etc. Daniel said, "Thou, 
King, art a king of kings for the God of heaven hath given 
thee a kingdom, power, strength and glory (four), and where- 
soever the children of men dwell hath made thee ruler over 
them all. Thou art that head of gold. After thee shall arise 
another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom 
of brass, which shall rule over all the earth." King Nebuchad- 
nezzar was the head of gold and three other kings or kingdoms 
like his own were to follow. Here is a mystery. The three 
universal monarchies that folloAved are described as the Medo- 
Persian, the Grecian and the Eoman. By universal power is 
meant to express the sum total of all human or world power. 
The four world powers are expressed in four successive mon- 
archies which, while they differ from one another, as world 
powers, are all one in their essential nature and in their rela- 
tions to God, and are, therefore, presented as one great image 
of man power, the power of man over man, "the man of 
sin." It was world power that took captive the kingdom of 
God and of Israel and is here seen as the heavenly and the 
earthly in conflict, the heavenly now in subjection. This 
Babylonian captivity is the juncture in human affairs where 
God chose to show the outcome of the conflict between the 
heavenly and worldly, which is the field of contest, and con- 
cerning which God has chosen to tell what shall come to pass 
"hereafter" "in the latter days." This confiiet is strongly ex- 
pressed by Daniel. He said, "Thou sawest till that a stone 



58 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

was cut out without hands which smote the image vipon his 
feet, that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces, 
the iron, the brass, the silver and the gold/' That is to say, 
though three of these monarchies must have passed away before 
the one represented by the feet could be smitten by Christ, 
who came in the time of the last one, yet the stone strikes 
them all because as related to God they are all of one nature, 
and the stone breaking one, breaks all. They differ only 
in their human aspects and by the changes of the on-going 
of time. Together they were "broken and became as the chaff 
of the summer threshing floor which the wind carried away 
and there was no place found for them.'' They differ from each 
other in point of time and in some of their characteristics, but 
these are subordinate; being one in opposition to God, they 
face a common doom. That is, in their brute life, in their 
essential and common nature, Christ will crush them and they 
shall sit at His feet. 

The stone that smote the image became "a great mountain 
and filled the whole earth." The question of all the ages is 
whether the will of man instigated by Satan, or the will of 
God, born of love, shall rule the life of man. It was the first 
question. The exile's story is about this. The temptation to 
sin was that ye may be as God, may know and do for yourself 
and not need to believe in another, to depend upon or pray to 
Him. All forms of exercising the will of man over man is at 
enmity with God's purpose concerning Him. The world powers 
have this nature in common and whether many or few, they 
are adverse to the will of God by the exercise of brute rule. 
The man of sin is represented in this great image seen in the 
king's dream, and a man of righteousness, Christ, is represented 
as the stone cut out without hands that strikes the image on 
the feet and destroys it, and as in the image, the totality of 
world power is represented, so in the stone which smote it. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 59 

the totality of divine power is expressed. As on the heavenly 
side we saw ho^v Christ gathers to Himself the heavenly powers 
in essential nnion with Himself, the apostles and churches and 
the Holy Spirit, and so leads the contest as "the Alpha and 
the Omega'' in the symbol seven, so on the other side we now 
see a gathering of successive universal empire, the totality of 
world power of all ages in the symbol four, united in the single 
fact of rebellion against God, having now despised and put to 
death His beloved Son who comes to John in Patmos to tell 
this story of the end. All world power has its signal in four 
as the heavenly has in seven. In whatever form it appears, 
four bears this import, both in its multiples and in its fractions. 
Eight and sixteen and "sixteen hundred'^ and the enumeration 
of four names, such as "tribes, peoples, tongues and nations," 
and as murderers, sorcerers, fornicators and thieves, ix, 21, etc., 
and "the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murder- 
ers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolators and liars" (twice four) are 
all world signs. A fourth part also is a world sign, the Hebrew 
and Greek alphabets being all numeral as well as phonetic in 
value, there is a stronger affinity between their alphabetic and 
numeral uses than we have in English. Four is our unfailing 
sign for worldliness — world power the will of man against the 
will of God, apostacy. 

Now as the vision given to the king was to show him what 
was to come to pass in the latter days, and as our Lord con- 
nected His coming with the words of Daniel the prophet, w^e 
are prepared to find it in the Eevelation. That is, "the things 
which shall come to pass hereafter." The things shown first 
are the things which shall be last to be fulfilled. Christ is 
become the mountain that fills the earth, the perfect rule, the 
regeneration where God rules the world in righteousness. Here 
we have an unmistakable identity. Both N'ebuchadnezzar and 
John in their visions see the world powers in their different 



60 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

stages as they progress toward that time. They both see the 
overthrow of the world powers and the establishment of the 
heavenly. The stone cut out of the mountain itself becomes a 
great mountain and fills the earth, and John says, "He sits on 
a throne and the world powers serve Him." In the great image 
the decline and fall of world power is shown by the different 
qualities and positions of the great image. This decline is 
marked in four ways: 

1. The head is a unit. 

2. The chest and arms are divided. 

3. The body and thighs are in three. 

4. The legs with feet are four parts and the toes continue 
to divide into ten parts. Thus the image shows weakening and 
declines by its greater divisions. 

2. The head stands highest, the chest and arms lower, the 
body and thighs lower and the legs and feet lower till the 
feet and toes lie prone upon the earth. 

3o The gold is heaviest, the silver is lighter, and the brass 
lighter than silver, and the iron lighter than the brass, etc. 

4. The gold is more valuable than silver, the silver more 
valuable than brass and the brass more valuable than iron, etc. 

In every point of comparison, position, weight, value, unity, 
etc., there is a weakening and decline; but in point of order 
it was explained to the king that these kingdoms should follow 
his own in succession of time, himself the head of the empire 
of man, while the Eoman was to be the last, lowest, most di- 
vided, etc. This is now the end of it. John sees to the end of 
world power and sees God sitting on His throne and the world 
powers in the midst of the throne and round about the throne 
that is reigning with God under His authority. It is the moun- 
tain, the government of heaven which Daniel said should fill 
the whole earth. We notice that both the golden head and 
his successors entirely lose their personalities. It is their king- 
doms that differ from each other, being all alike and one in 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 61 

their opposition to the kingdom of God. The head of gold 
explains the mystery of unity and gives ns the method of inter- 
pretation. That it was His kingdom and its relations to the 
kingdoms to follow^ is seen in the figure of the man, not alone 
in the king's own personality. When Christ, the stone, cut 
out without hands, strikes the image. He strikes it on the feet 
which is the last in point of time, and yet He crushes both it 
and those also which have long ago perished, and not only so, 
but He will break as a potter's vessel all such powers that fol- 
low, whether called monarchies or republics, etc., that oppose 
the supremacy of His will over the nations of earth. 

We observe with wonder that the same effacement of person- 
alities is observed here as in the heavenly powers wdiere seven 
was our sign. The two conflicting empires of heaven and earth 
carry on their contest without the direct use of personalities. 
This impersonal treatment gives fullness and clearness and ef- 
fect to the nature and relations of the powers engaged. The 
differences between these world powers show only their changes 
as they gradually come under the control of the heavenly domin- 
ion. While these were shown to the king as diverse parts of 
one image of man, where all the four parts, while differing from 
each other, are yet human, that is man power, the sin of man, 
or the man of sin, John sees them as four separate living- crea- 
tures, and while these wear different outward characteristics, 
they are also one in praising and serving God around His 
throne. They are in a common bond and are united with the 
throne and with the elders and the seven lamps, etc. This is 
their relation changed from rebellion to obedience. But their 
outward appearance as a lion, a calf, etc., shows us their out- 
ward differences as they had been while alien and rebellious. 

Lying between these two conditions, one given in vision to 
the monarch of Babylon and the other to John on the isle of 
Patmos, is the irrepressible conflict of the ages, led on the 



62 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

one side by the Babylonian Empire, which had subjected the 
kingdom of God, and on the other by the stone cnt out with- 
out hands, Christ Jesus, or the Kingdom of God. This is the 
subject matter about which the Eevelation of Jesus Christ 
which God gave to Him, treats. The kingdom of men in its 
relation to the kingdom of God; the conflict begun with Baby- 
lon when Nebuchadnezzar was king, and ends when Jesus Christ, 
who is the first and the last, shall become and be "the ruler of 
the kings of the earth." These four Hiding creatures about the 
throne present a decidedly dual aspect. In their number four, 
and in their external appearance as beastly, and in their repre- 
senting every tribe, tongue, people and nation, v, 9, and in 
their reign on the earth, v, 9-10, show their worldly origin, 
etc. But in their company, and in their fealty, and in their 
worship, they are become heavenly. This duality of character 
has a still larger illustration in the book of Daniel. The same 
lesson given to the king by the great image in the vision was 
also given to Daniel under changed symbols which he could 
not understand any more than the king could understand the 
vision given to him, and Daniel had to call upon the angel of 
God to interpret his dream, even as the king was compelled to 
call upon Daniel to interpret his. Daniel said, "I saw in my 
vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven strove 
upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the 
sea diverse one from the other. The first was like a "lion and 
had eagle's wings, etc.; the second was like a bear, etc., and 
the third was like a leopard with four wings on the back of 
it, and had four heads; and the fourth beast was dreadful and 
terrible and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. 
It devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with 
the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were 
before it, and it had ten horns." The angel explained to Daniel 
and said, "These great beasts are four kings (or kingdoms) 



on, THE RIVEN VEIL. 63 

which shall arise out of the earth." Here is onr signal "four" 
again and the angel calls our attention to it. We have "four 
winds" that strive, and "four diverse beasts" that rise out of 
the sea, and one of them has "four" heads and "four" wings. 
But to the king himself the world powers were expressed in 
one great image "whose brightness was excellent and whose 
form was terrible," standing erect like a man with head of 
gold, etc., but to Daniel is shown the same power represented 
from a different point of view. 

To him they are four great dripping beasts from the troubled 
sea of humanity where the agitation of the sinful passions of 
men raise up kings and rulers which follow each other and rule 
by the exercise of brute power. This is the way God and God's 
children view beast rule, the sinful will of man over man. Here 
are two diverse views of world power. To the worldling, brute 
power is dazzling and excellent, but to the godly it is mere 
brute power that rises from the dregs and froth and foam of 
agitated sinful humanity. This double view pervades the Apoc- 
alypse of John. 

DanieFs dream shewed the same end and doom of world 
power as shown to the king. He says, "I beheld till the thrones 
were cast down and the Ancient of days did sit whose garment 
was white as snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. 
His throne was like a flame and His wheels burning fire." 

Here we now have three witnesses converging upon the same 
point and condition of time. The visions of the king and of 
Daniel, and of John, all meet at this point. As John looked 
upon the scene of the last time, "The things which are to come 
to pass hereafter" we should expect to see the symbols of the 
heavenly powers also associated with them as they were in the 
Babylonian captivity, and so we do, but the conditions are now 
reversed. It is the kingdom come, the millennium, the fruition, 
yet future. John saw before the throne the seven lamps of 



64 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

fire (the clmrclies) and round about the throne, the twenty-fonr 
elders judging with Christ in His kingdom, that is, His apostles 
and their number here double, making twenty-four. 

These four living creatures have each of them six wings. 
This is the second time we have met with the number six. Its 
first occurrence is a mere enumeration, and is rung in the ears 
of the backsliding Laodiceans who are lukewarm, wretched, 
miserable, poor, blind and naked. As six is a symbol of evil 
origin, it will play a very important place in the account pres- 
ently to be given of brute power. Six wings show the evil 
origin of these beasts and of all rebellion against God. Both 
the bodies and the wings of these four living creatures are en- 
tirely composed of eyes. That signifies their representative 
character. They represent all the world governmentally, po- 
litically, hence it is said they are ruling with Him on the earth, 
and that they praise Him "day and night.^' There is no day 
or night in the eternal world, xxi, 22, hence must refer to 
this world. These four creatures say "Thou hast redeemed us 
out of every tongue and tribe and people and nation.'^ They 
represent the world powers as become obedient to God. We 
shall meet with them again and again, seven times in all, be- 
fore we have finished the book. These creatures at one time 
represented as mere sea beasts as seen by heaven and as an image 
of gold, silver and brass, etc., seen by men, are now composed 
entirely of human eyes, all turned lovingly and devoutly toward 
the throne of God in the millennium and the creatures or forms 
that represent them say "Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! 
which art, which wast and which is to come." They are now 
subject and subordinate rulers. "The kingdom" of the world 
is become the kingdom of God and of His Christ, and the 
heavenly powers and principles govern mankind. 

The seven lamps of fire that burn before the throne are "the 
seven spirits of God," that is, the seven churches viewed as 
comiiig from God and giving light upon the throne. These 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 65 

seven spirits are again explained as "the seven spirits of God, 
sent forth into all the earth." As lights in the world and for 
the world, the churches have their symbol as candlesticks, bnt 
as giving light npon God's throne and power, they are lamps 
of fire burning before the throne which is a symbol both of 
the churches and of the Holy Spirit. As the churches are God's 
missionaries to carry the Gospel into all the world to every 
creature, they are represented also as the seven spirits sent 
out into all the earth, etc. The seven spirits are before the 
throne, and they send greeting (i, 4) and are seven advocates 
of the seven letters, saying "Let him that hath an ear hear 
what the spirit saith to the churches, and are now seven lamps 
before the throne" that is light and intelligence and power 
before the throne. In this pleasing way we begin to enlarge 
our mystic vocabulary. The church means those elected, or 
called out of the world; then they are shown to be candlesticks, 
or lamp-stands that give light to the world as where converted 
men stand to give the light of the Spirit and then as seven 
spirits sent on missions to the whole world, and then as lamps 
of fire before the throne as where men are not, but as showing 
to the world the source and origin of this divine light, as com- 
ing from God. As related to the Father and the Christ the 
Holy Spirit comes once between their names in sending greet- 
ing to the churches. He is joint author of the seven letters 
and exchanges places Vv^ith him after the third letter, as already 
shown in a skeleton of the letters. 

The twenty-four elders around the throne represent the Old 
and the New Testament saints, or the Jews and Gentiles. As 
Christ said to His apostles they should sit upon twelve thrones, 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel, so here are twice twelve 
to represent the Gentiles, whose dispensation this is, since it 
was rejected by the Jews. ' These enthroned elders wear crowns 
of gold to show they have conquered, and now reign. Being 
5 



^6 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

arrayed in white linen shows their pure character, "for the 
white linen is the righteous acts of the saints." 

"And before the throne, as it were, a glassy sea like unto 
crystal." This is that same sea (the people) that Daniel saw, 
out of which he saw the great beasts rise, but now how wonder- 
fully changed! This sea must be often troubled and tossed 
and crimsoned with blood and corrupted with dead carcasses 
before the glorious time which John saw when it is purified 
like crystal lying calm and white before the throne. 

The fourth chapter is the tableau of the millennium, or what 
we have imperfectly understood as such. Looking upon the 
sea of redeemed humanity John beholds the world in mass, 
"ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands," 
all clothed in white, all glorious and joyful and praising God. 
In these symbols about the throne we recognize the very di- 
visions that have been so long in the world. The Old Testa- 
ment and the New Testament, saints by an old division, now 
sitting upon twenty-four thrones. The churches of Christ as 
seven lamps of fire, and the four living creatures as the gov- 
ernments of the world power, and the sea of redeemed people 
en masse, is a true and conventional image of the very dis- 
tinctions by which we know them now and have hitherto. 

These are the four principal objects about the throne which 
is the center of the group. "He that sat upon the throne was 
to look upon like a Jasper stone and a sardius." The breast- 
plate which the High Priest wore when he went into the holy 
place once each year to offer atonement for the sins of the na- 
tion contained twelve precious stones or gems, on each of which 
was inscribed one of the names of the twelve tribes. The "sar- 
dius" and the "jasper" were the first and the last of these gems, 
and here they are taken by metonomy to represent the breast- 
plate itself, or the total of the true Israel of God. The sym- 
bol, therefore, represents the priestly office and declares that 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 67 

He who occLiioies the throne is a merciful and faithful high 
priest^ and that this is a throne founded upon sacrifice and 
mercy, and that it has won the world by loVe. He is the King 
of Peace and "The government is upon His shoulders/' 

"And there was a rainbow round about the throne like an 
emerald to look upon." The rainbow shows the storm of w^orld 
tumult is over and ^he troubled sea has subsided and lies calm, 
clear and crystalline before Him. The promise of God is ful- 
filled. The world is redeemed from brute dominion, and the 
four living creatures have no rest day or night praising God, 
and the twenty-four elders shall fall down before Him that 
sitteth upon the throne and shall worship Him, and shall cast 
their crowns before the throne, saying, "Worthy art thou our 
Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor, and 
the power, for thou didst create all things, and because of thy 
will they were and were created." 

"And there was a rainbow about the throne like an emerald 
to look upon." The emerald is green and its color is the symbol 
of life. The throne is a living throne. It is not past and 
obsolete, but living just as the four creatures are called living 
creatures. Green is also the symbol of living in viii, 7; ix, 4. 
The outcome and end of creation is the objective point toward 
which the great disclosure moves on, till the stone, which was 
small in its beginning, shall smite and crush the image of 
man power and shall fill the earth as a great mountain till all 
the tribes, tongues, peoples and nations shall do in fact what 
the monarch of Babylon in form commanded, to "worship the 
God of Daniel." 

"Out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunders and 
voices." That is the going out of the will and command of 
God. The voice of God is called "thunder," in its effects upon 
the heart is called "lightning," and as spoken by men, it is 
All the occurrences of these symbols sustain 



68 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

this use. The heavenly powers so clearly identified in the three 
first chapters are here commingling with the worldly. The 
Father upon His living throne with the rainbow bending over 
it, showing all His promises fulfilled, and the apostles in judg- 
ment on thrones, and the churches, and the host of people 
purified now by the spirit, and with them now the old enemies 
in full accord but with the old marks of disobedience still upon 
them. This is the last but it is presented first. In the first 
chapter we had Christ as He is to be. In the letters we see 
Him as He was at that iijne, but in the fourth chapter, we see 
Him as He is to be at the end. The King and Daniel and John 
all find the culmination of their Revelations in this blessed 
outcome. Here His will is done in the earth as in heaven. 
The four living creatures are now as strong as a lion, obedient 
as the calf, intelligent as man and swift as the eagle to do and 
to execute the will of God on earth. But we have missed the 
distinct symbol for Christ in this fourth chapter as though His 
distinctive work had been accomplished and turned over to the 
Father. This vision is not complete without the fifth chapter 
which presents Christ as receiver of the Revelation. The signal 
numbers which are here coming into view (vii, 4) do not re- 
ceive their full import till they are carried back to their source 
and forw^ard again to their end. 

The word "seven'^ first occurs, Gen. ii, 2; and the first oc- 
currence of "four" is in Gen. ii, 10; and their symbolic uses 
rest upon the statements there given. As already declared, the 
symbol seven identifies Christ with the beginning and end of 
creation. The very use of seven therefore in this sense, while 
it co-ordinates Christ with creation, it also co-ordinates His 
spiritual forces with creation. His apostles. His churches, etc., 
for it brings them to an equivalent as together constituting 
the unit of divine power in God before the foundation of the 
world. So are they co-ordinate in the consummation. There 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 69 

can be no mistake of the intention to co-ordinate Christ with 
creation^ for He is expressly declared to be ^"the lamb that hath 
been slain from the foundation of the world'"' and He is the 
Beginning of the Creation of God and His saints are those 
whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. 

The symbol four is carried back in the same manner to 
its origin, ^e have noticed that in all its occurrences, it is 
of decidedly earthly origin and association both in the vision 
of John and in the Eevelation given to Daniel and to the King. 
But the first occurrence of four identifies its use directly with 
the sin and apostasy of man and his departure from the Garden. 
The basis of its symbolic use therefore is to be found in the 
river ^"that divided into four heads." This is the river of God 
which went out of Eden to water the Garden, and ''thence it 
was parted and became into four heads." ^'The Lord planted 
a garden East in Eden," better say East of Eden. This river 
went out of Eden to water the Garden which the Lord had 
planted, and when it passed through and outside the Garden 
it became into four heads. AVhether we are to consider that 
the human family in its dispersion, after the exit from the gar- 
den, settled along these rivers, which would be very natural, 
or if the story itself is not allegorical, resting upon some more 
spiritual antetype, it need make no difference, for upon these 
four heads to the Eiver of God outside the Garden, the sym- 
bol use of four is founded as signifying apostasy from God, 
and the total of world power the disobedience of man ad- 
verse to the heavenly \dll. It means the four qtjarters of the 
earth, all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations, etc. 

As the Eevelation by St. John is the story of the world crea- 
tion and world redemption, of the things thou sawest, the 
things that are and the things which shall come to pass here- 
after, from Him which Is, and which Was, and which Is To 
Come; it is at pains to compass the tragedy of the race of man 



70 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

from his fall by sin to his restoration by righteousness with the 
use of symbols that rest on the vital fact of his fall and that 
reach to the return of the countless millions of his race to his 
Father's house. 

The purpose of God in creating man and his fall on the 
one hand^ and his redemption on the other, being the theme 
of this book with which God closes His word to man, I offer 
here a diagram that may assist the mind to grasp at one view 
the beginning, the middle state and the final outcome of the 
redemptive scheme. 

No. 1. The primitive world represents man's primitive re- 
lation to God. a is Eden, b is the Garden East, with its river 
and its two trees of life and death, or of love to God and love 
for self. The river flows out from Eden and passing through 
the Garden divides into four heads on the outside and flows 
toward the four corners of the earth. 

No. 2. Kepresents the typical or middle state. God said 
to Moses, see thou make all things according to the pattern 
showed thee in the mount. That pattern was of the primitive 
state from which man fell. The appointments of the Taber- 
nacle which he made had special reference to man's fallen con- 
dition; such were the altar of blood, f, and the basin for wash- 
ing, z; the golden candlestick, m, wdth its seven burners; the 
table of bread, e; the golden altar, h; the most holy place, k, 
which represents the dwelling of God and is but another name 
for Eden in shadow. The Tabernacle of Moses is the typical 
world — it is both a pattern of the things which were past and 
a shadow of good things to come. The world outside the taber- 
nacle, called the outer court, is 1. 

No. 3. Is a diagram of the new world created in righteous- 
ness. It is a fac-simile in form of the two preceding, and is 
the realization of them, the substance toward which the tab- 




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72 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

ernacle as a shadow looked and from which our race in fact 
fell away. 

Our three diagrams show Eden lost, then foreshadowed and 
then regained. 

It is this which Jesus Christ shows to His servant John in 
the isle of Patmos, and toward which all true believers are look- 
ing with prayerful hearts. Toward this the tabernacle of Moses 
looked. It was a pattern of the paradise lost and the shadow of 
the paradise to be regained and is this moment in process of 
being restored. In the tabernacle of Moses there was a veil 
that divided the sanctuary from the Most Holy. Through this 
veil the high priest would pass once each year to make the of- 
fering. In diagram No. 3 that veil, p, is missing. When our 
Lord was crucified that veil in the Temple was rent from top 
to bottom. In symbol as applied to the Christ's dispensation, 
that veil is said to be His flesh, Heb. x, 20, and that the new 
and living way is consecrated with no veil to interpose, so, "we 
may have access and come boldly unto the throne of grace," s. 
We now stand before God unveiled as where there is no cur- 
tain, though the veil is still upon the hearts of many now as 
then; and as the veil which Moses wore over his face fleshly 
Israel still wears in figure till this day, so spiritual Israel also 
confesses her veil upon her eyes by calling this Eevelation "the 
sealed book," a conundrum, a sphinx. 

The supreme obstacle to our correctly interpreting the Apoc- 
alypse by St. John seems to be that we still imagine a veil 
to separate two worlds which Christ has annexed and made 
one. We have not understood what the removing of that veil 
implies in our spiritual economy. There is no veil between 
the present sanctuary and the Most Holy Place. "Where two 
or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst." In all places where the saints appear in this book 
they are an unit. They are never divided from Christ by a 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 73 

wall or separation, nor from each other as between the living 
and the dead. There are no militant saints seen in this book 
as if separated from the triumphant. They are all triumphant 
both in heaven and on earth. These are words which cannot 
be put together except we rend the veil from our own hearts 
that divides these into militant and triumphant worlds and 
learn to regard the saints as all living in God now, and as in 
white garments standing before God and serving Him, here and 
now in His tabernacle. 

But there is another veil that divides the sanctuary from 
the world without, r, and that veil remains to be removed by 
Christ through His saints. It is the veil that divides the church 
from the world. When the nations are converted then that 
veil also shall be taken away. Then all the nations that have 
departed from God shall bring their treasures to Him, xxi, 24:-27. 
And they are represented as a river flowing back into the Gar- 
den, the Xew eJerusalem, from four heads bearing their treas- 
ure, etc. That is, the four rivers of apostasy, the four part 
image, the four beasts of Daniel, and the four horses of John 
and the four world angels of John, all representing the apostate 
race of man in the different stages of his return to God, are 
to be seen at last coming back to God through the rending of 
the outer veil where, in figure, the flaming cherubim had once 
been placed her gates now open; all to be accomplished when 
Christians shall demand and secure for this world's rule the 
will of God in Christ to be done on earth as in heaven. It 
is in this state that John sees the world powers as four living 
creatures around the throne praising and obeying God. Apos- 
tate man has returned to his Father's house. 

What is called Eden in diagram Xo. 1, is called the Most 
Holy Place in N"o. 2, and is the ^ew Jerusalem in Xo. 3. What 
is called the garden East in Eden in Xo. 1, is called the sanc- 
tuary in the tabernacle in Xo. 2, and in Xo, 3 the same place 



74 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

is called the eliiireli. The river that passed through the garden 
and jDarted into four heads on the outside could not have a 
direct symbol- in a migratory tabernacle like that of Moses, but 
the New Testament has supplied the analogy, for the hosts of 
Israel and their tabernacle were followed by a fountain of 
water that gushed from a rock which God opened, and in type 
"that rock that followed them was Christ." So all nations shall 
bring their glory into it "and there shall in no wise enter into 
it anything unclean or he that maketh an abomination or a 
lie," etc. Here is the river again returned to the City of God, 
and on either side of it is the tree. This time they are both 
trees of life, t. t. 

Death is no more. "And he showed me a river of water of 
life bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and 
of the Lamb in the midst of the street thereof. And on this 
side of the river and on that, was the tree of life bearing twelve 
manner of fruit and yielding its fruits every month." In Gen. 
ii, 8, we are told that God planted a garden Eastward in Eden, 
Eden in the larger sense including both. "A river went out 
of P]den to water the garden." That is from Eden as a place 
of dispensing blessings to another place where man, tlie re- 
ceiver of blessings, was placed, with no definite division. It 
was into this place that God came to speak to man about his 
sin, and it was from this garden that man was driven and went 
wandering to the four corners of the earth to be the victim of 
his own sin in rejecting the counsel of God. That the man 
thought to hide himself from God shows that he must have 
supposed he was separated from God by some veil or separa- 
tion, which, however, he was not, just as we are not, since in 
our dispensation the veil is taken away and every one is brought 
face to face with God in Jesus Christ. We are a kingdom of 
priests and each one can come boldly to the throne of grace 
and obtain grace to help in time of need. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 75 

The chapt^ closes by showing that the four living creatures 
and Elders each offer three praises to Him that sitteth on the 
throne. "Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God to receive 
the glory and honor and power for thou hast created all things 
and because of thy will they were and were created." We have 
now seen Christ as the Alpha and as the Omega, and lying be- 
tween these is the story of how He will come to be the Prince of 
the rulers of the earth. 

THE ORATORIOS. 

All t'^e appearances we have of the four living creatures and 
the Elders are in connection with the fruition. They appear 
seven times in all and belong to the poetry or psalmody of 
the book. They appear at the close of each great heavenly 
victory, but their reappearances do not mark the chronological 
progress of events. Although the four living creatures call the 
four horses to view in succession, as if at advancing points of 
time, they belong in fact to one point of time or one condi- 
tion. They are brought forward and kept before our attention 
as the outcome and end as though they were present. It is 
the license of poetry and song, and presupposes our happy estate 
as though it were present. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Four living creatures: Four horses; four angels, standing on the 
four corners of the earth; four angels bound in the Euphrates; 
tribes, tongues, peoples and nations; them that dwell on the earth; 
not sealed, the wicked, etc. 



76 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTER IV. 

Revelation V, 

THE MYSTERY IN SEALS. 

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat upon the throne a 
book written within and on the back side close sealed with seven 
seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a great voice, 
Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? 
And no one in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able 
to open the book, or to look thereon. And I wept much because no 
one was found worthy to open the book or to look thereon. 

And one of the elders said to me. Weep not; behold the lion 
which is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David hath prevailed to 
open the book and the seven seals thereof. And I saw in the midst 
of the throne and of the four living creatures and the four and 
twenty elders a lamb standing as though i": had been slain, having 
seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God 
sent forth into all the earth. And He came and taketh the book 
out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne. 
^ And when he had' taken the book the four living creatures, and 
the four and twenty elders, fell down before the Lamb having 
each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the 
prayers of the saints. 

The scenes of the fifth chapter are closely allied with those 
of the fourth. There is the same cast. The same throne re- 
mains and Him that sits thereon, but now He holds in His right 
hand "a book written within and on the back, close sealed 
with seven seals.'^ Here are seven sealed messages from the 
Father. Another fignre here appears upon the scene who in 
turn becomes, for the time, the center of attraction for all eyes. 
John says, "And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the 
four living creatures, and in the midst of the Elders a lamb 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 77 

standing as tliougii it had been slain, having seven horns and 
seven ej-es." A book was more to John than to any other of 
the New Testament wTiters. Besides this, his wondrous hiero- 
glyph written in exile more than a quarter of a century after 
all other apostles had ceased to write, he had already written the 
spiritual gospel accredited to him, possessing in addition to its 
deeper spiritual testimony the highest literary interest; and 
he had written three letters, one of them being the only let- 
ter in the New Testament, addressed to a woman, "the elect 
lady and her children," to whom he had "many things to write 
but chose not to write them with ink and pen." Ah! how 
recollections of that sweet home in Jerusalem where Mary was 
guest, must have warmed in his heart to wTite to a mother 
and her children. He had closed his gospel narrative with say- 
ing "And there are also many other things wdiich Jesus did 
in the presence of His disciples the which, if they should be 
written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could 
not contain the books that should be written." These writings 
illustrate a literary vigilance and retrospection entirely his own. 
They show both his taste for letters, and their contents show 
the profundity of his conception, and the tenderness of his pa- 
thos. In all his former writings there is with him an obtru- 
sive sense of the incompleteness of his work. He cannot tell it, 
cannot write it with ink and pen, etc., but in this last book he 
tells all and finishes the story and pronounces the plagues written 
in this book, upon any one who shall either add to it or "take 
away from the words of this prophecy." But to see a book in 
the right hand of Him that sitteth upon the throne, close sealed 
with seven seals, moved his anxious inquiring heart to tears, 
and seeing it sealed with seven seals it burst full upon his heart 
that here are also seven other messages for the seven churches 
from the Father, but they are not open like those already sent 
from Christ, but are sealed and in the hand of Him that sit- 



78 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tetli upon the throne, containing the secret things of the fu- 
ture, "The things that shall come to pass hereafter" into which 
no eye can see, not even the angels, "nor the Son except as the 
Father giveth Him." 

This sealed message is now held forth, but no one to re- 
ceive it, to open it, or read it. "And I saw a strong angel pro- 
claiming with a loud voice, Svho is worthy to open the book 
and to loose the Seals thereof.' " AVho can receive and im- 
part these secrets? This mighty call of the angel drew the 
attention of the wide domains of the throne, for upon call "no 
one in the heaven or on the earth, or under the earth was found 
able to open the book or look thereon." Neither man nor angel, 
nor the Elders, nor the living creatures^ for this is that mys- 
tery of the future, "which the Father hath set within His own 
authority." Not being able to look thereupon, is explained in 
the great oratorio that closes the drama. "Worthy is the Lamb 
that hath been slain to receive power and riches and wisdom 
and might and honor and glory and blessing, for thou wast 
slain and did purchase unto God by thy blood, men of every 
tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and made them to be unta 
our God a kingdom of priests and they reign upon the earth." 
He alone is worthy or able. When the seer saw the anxious 
expectant attention of all, in the heavens and on the earth, and 
under the earth, drawn to this emergency and no one found 
able or worthy to open the book, or to look thereon, that is, 
to discern' its meaning, he tells us this experience: "T wept 
much because no one was found worthy to open the book or to 
look thereon." What an experience for the seer. Here crops 
to view an autobiography which as an undercurrent can be 
traced in his Gospel and his apocalypse. Ah! here is the word 
of God he loved so much yet unspoken, shut up in seals. It 
caused him to weep. It was when his loved Lazarus, brother 
to Martha and Mary, was sealed in the tomb that his Master is 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 79 

said for once to have wept. In the right hand of Him that 
sits upon the throne, above the reach of all, and sealed with 
seven seals, and no one able to break them; seven new letters 
to John and to the seven churches and to all churches till the 
world ends, and they are sealed up, an occasion for tears and 
now as then. 

John had been told, "what thou seest write in a book and 
send to the seven churches," and he had written the seven open 
letters of the things that were then current, but he was to 
write not the things thou saAvest only, but also the things which 
shall come to pass hereafter, and these, no man knoweth, they 
are sealed and no man can break the seals. These messages 
contain the secrets of God from of old. They are not to be 
given or trusted to men, nor to angels. There are to be no 
intermediaries. This book is to be and is the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His servants, 
and the giving is here illustrated by strikingly dramatic action. 
Here the Eevelation proper begins. What has preceded was 
mostly open and knowable. Here is a Eevelation Avithin the 
greater Revelation. The opening of these seals will be the 
opening of the story of the future, known to God only, and will 
fill in the time between what is known and past and that last 
time which has been presented in the fourth chapter, which is 
the consummation and end. 

This giving of the Revelation as a sealed book in dramatic 
form is called the giving of the Revelation to Jesus Christ, and 
it is chanted as the theme of exultation in the chorus which 
closes it. At first this seems like a triple and complex method 
of teaching, that the facts should be stated and then drama- 
tized and then chanted in a new song. But this is our own 
method, only in a different guise, for we preach the gospel in 
plain words, and we illustrate our subject, and then we sing 
a suitable h}Tnn. This triplicity of method turns our atten- 



80 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tion to the number three as a signal number like "seven" and 
"four" and "six/' etc. Its constant use challenges our atten- 
tion to its import. The book itself is called the Kevelation to 
be shown, to be signified. It is from Him which is, and which 
was and which is to come, the Lord God Almighty. It is from 
the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is concerning things 
present, jy^ist and future. John is in the tribulation, king- 
dom and patience of Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness, 
the first born from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the 
earth. The living creatures say. Holy! holy! holy! They give 
glory, honor and thanks, etc. 

The Christian dispensation as unveiled in this book shows 
three great divisions, the evangelization beginning at Jerusa- 
lem on the Pentecost, the Eeformation now well spent, and 
the Eegeneration to come. Its three-fold method of instruc- 
tion is didactic, dramatic and epic. Three is the distinct sym- 
bol for heavenly origin and carries this primary certification 
in all its occurrences. The time which the sealed messages are 
to cover is the time of the mystery of God which is to be 
fulfilled, X, 7. This time also coincides with the time of the 
tribulation and the patience of the saints, and its fulfillment 
and demonstration coincides and correlates with the ascendancy 
of the church, and the work of regeneration or the spiritual 
genesis, the New Jerusalem, the new heaven and the new earth. 
The past, present and future are its great general divisions. 

The secret of these middle times was hid in God, and eye 
had not seen nor ear heard; no man knew, neither the angels 
in heaven, neither the son of man, only as the Father giveth 
to Him. The secrets within these seals are intended for the 
churches, as shown by their number; they are of the greatest 
importance, as shown by the pains of their delivery, and they 
are the deepest secrets, as seen by their being close sealed so no 
one could break them. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 81 

AVliile John was weeping one of the Elders spoke to him. 
This is the first time he had been addressed since the Lord 
hiid His hand upon him saying, "Fear not." 

Ah I it is his beloved Lord upon whose bosom he laid his 
trusting head in the love feast at the last supper in Jerusalem. 
He tells us none of his feelings, only that he had wept mucli 
because no one could be found to open the seven wondrous seals; 
and now to see his beloved Master represented as the sacri- 
ficial lamb with all the hosts of God restraining their joy, what 
a moment! He had been trodden down in the wine-press of 
world wrath all alone, rejected of men, deserted by His disciples. 
He is now the center for all eyes and takes the book from the 
right hand of Him that sits upon the throne. John does not 
tell us the reaction of his own feelings when he saw all the 
angels and the heaven and the earth and the sea extolling his 
Lord. AVe can imagine that. It is no time for sorrow now. 
The exile is at home again as when he stood on the mount of 
transfiguration, with the glory of his Master while he talked 
with Moses and Elijah. The Christ is here presented as both 
a lion and a lamb. This is a strong paradox of symbol, lion of 
the tribe of Judah, Lamb of God. Ah! it was Judah whose 
prowess prevailed above his brethren. His acts left their impres- 
sion deep upon his father's heart who, when aged and dying and 
leaning upon his staff, left this encomium upon him: "Judah, 
thou art a lion's whelp, from the prey, my son, thou art gone up. 
He stooped down, he couched as a lion. Thy brethren shall praise 
thee." How multiple is the power of expression by laying 
symbol upon symbol. He is a lamb slain and now standing be- 
fore the throne. A lamb in meekness dumb before its shearer 
and a sacrifice for sins. But this very meekness is the power 
and prowess of Judah spiritualized. Here simplicity is wis- 
dom, meekness is power, and humiliation is exaltation. The 
symbol is a kind of figure that flashes upon the heart the points 
6 



82 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

of spiritual light. Judah and David and the sacrificial lamb 
are all drawn into one composite to focalize spiritual excel- 
lence upon the character of Him who is to be trusted with this 
book. Christ, moved with a deep sense of shame for the sinful 
race, which burned lil^ a fire in His soul, was to vindicate His 
own honor and the ways of God to men and to save those who 
seek Him, entered the gap of death alone where the maledic- 
tions of the world were heaped upon Him. They smote Him, 
they spat upon Him and put Him to death between two thieves. 
John in exile sees Him still wearing the scars of that mob. He 
shows what He has suffered. Once rejected, dragged through 
the streets and mocked, John sees Him now standing and re- 
ceiving from God the sealed book. He alone is worthy. 
"Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He 
was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our 
iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and 
with His stripes we are healed. Who His own self bare our 
sins in His own body upon the tree." 

Like the four living creatures about the throne. He too, bears 
the mark of sin and of violence, but unlike them. His scars are 
not His own, but are the marks which this world put upon Him 
and would still inflict upon all true reformers, scars most honora- 
ble to wear. 

"And He cometh and taketh the book out of the right liand 
of Him that sat upon the throne." Now the observing, expect- 
ant throng breaks forth in glorious praise. 

- And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to take the 
book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain and didst 
purchase unto God by thy blood of every tribe and people and na- 
tion and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests 
and they reign upon the earth. And I saw and heard the voice of 
many angels round about the throne, and the number of them was 
ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying 
with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to re- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 83 

ceive the power and riches and wisdom and honor and might and 
glory and blessing. And every created thing which is in heaven and 
on the earth and under the earth and in the sea and all things in 
them heard I, saying, Unto him that sitteth upon the throne and 
unto the Lamb be the blessing and the honor and the glory and the 
dominion forever and ever. And the four living creatures said. 
Amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. 

The giving of this Eevelation through Christ to His servants 
is the subject of another drama to come later in our story, 
so that this book will be able to show a true succession from 
Him that sitteth upon the throne to whomsoever will receive 
it and be blessed. So was the law given a true succession. It 
came from God through the dispensation of angels to Moses and 
from Moses to the people of Israel. This Eevelation God gave 
to Christ, and Christ to the angel, and the angel gave to John 
and John to whomsoever will read. It was given to the seven 
churches and it is ours, brought safely unimpaired through the 
dark ages, thanks to John's warning not to add to or take from 
it on pain of the plagues which are written therein. Christ is 
here called "the root of David.'* David the deliverer of Israel. 
When the great coarse giant defied the people of God, David's 
skiir brought victory. All that David was as poet, Savior and 
King, etc., are rays of light with which the worthiness of His 
character is lighted up. God said "'when thy days are fulfilled 
I will set up thy seed after thee and I will establish His king- 
dom. He shall build a house for My name and I will establish 
the throne of His kingdom forever. My mercy shall not depart 
from him." As it is written "After this I will return and will 
build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, 
and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, 
that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the 
Gentiles on whom My name is called, saith the Lord who doeth 
all these things.'' All the spiritual excellences extracted from 
the lives of men and all the promises of God are laid under 



84: MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

contribution to raise to its transcendent heights the character 
and ofhce of him who is to receive and to impart the precious 
Eevelation. All shadows and types find their ecstasy in the 
Apocalypse. This book not only rests upon shadows and types, 
but it supplies the very faculty for reading by the effacement 
of artificial distinctions which hinder our understandings. 

Christ is here represented as a lamb, or, better, '^a little 
lamb.^^ The word occurs twenty-eight times and has a special 
charm as a "little lamb" in opposition to His enemy, the great 
beast, presently to appear. The Lamb, as He takes the book, is 
seen as a slain lamb, and that is given as the ground of His 
worthiness. To connect His churches closely with Himself, they 
are called the horns and the eyes of the Lamb and explained as 
"^'the seven spirits of God, sent out into all the earth," because 
the spirit works through the church. The horns and eyes 
help us to identify the Lamb who received the book as the 
Christ, who has since the first chapter appeared only in symbol. 
But in receiving this Revelation from God we miss all symbols 
for the apostles and churches, for this is an act in which the 
apostles and churches had no part, but Christ alone. It is 
a scene with Christ and with the Father. In the first doxology 
in the fourth chapter, we had three ascriptions of praise, but 
now, since Christ is joined to the throne as Revelator, we have 
seven. The Father alone is praised in the first chorus, but now 
the Lamb and then the Father, together by all creatures in 
heaven, earth and sea. The Lamb is worthy to receive and 
reveal secret things. He holds the book. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Seals: Secrets; parables; proverbs; dark sayings. 

Christ: Ruler of kings; beginning of creation of God; He that 
hath the seven stars, etc. 

The Lamb: Lion of the tribe of Judah; root of David; seal 
opener; angel ascending; white horse; Michael; white cloud angel; 
the Bridegroom; the word of God, etc. 



THIS DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATES THE GENERAL ORDER 
AS WE MEET IT. 



The 


heavenly powers, Ch. i 








The 


seven 


open letters, Ch. 


ii. 


and iii. 


The 


Millennium, Ch. iv. 








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Judgments and 


Regeneration 


I. 



ANALYSIS. 

In the substance of the vision John is synthetic, but in the 
form which guides in its structure he is analytic. This form 
consists of the leading acts of the church and its ministries 
on the following order and analysis. The New Testament mate- 
rials used are taken entirely from Luke and John's gospel. 

1. Christ, having been wickedly put to death by the world 
powers, rose, ascending to heaven, bearing with him the promise 
of the Holy Spirit, and on the day of Pentecost he met his 
enemies in a new role by the Holy Spirit and won to himself 
many souls, and having fulfilled His earthly labors and the 
promise to send the Comforter, he entered into His rest. 

2. The apostles, having received their commission, were 
commanded to tarry in Jerusalem, and while they waited for 
the Holy Spirit, and before they began to preach, they held a 
prayer meeting and elected Matthias to their number,. and when 
prepared they began to preach, Peter taking the lead, and they 
were followed by persecution and by the blessings of Christ, 
and later another apostle was added to their number, who was 
called by a direct commission from heaven, and was sent to 
the Gentile nations. This was Paul. Many years after this 
Christ appeared to John in the isle of Patmos, according to His 
promise to Peter, and gave him the revelation to show to his 
servants, and made him the prophet of the ages to follow. 

3. The Holy Spirit having raised Christ from the dead, His 
enemies were frightened and His disciples astonished, and Ho 
came, according to His promise, on the day of Pentecost and 
sealed the believers to their Lord and Saviour in number about 
three thousand of devout Jews out of every nation under heaven, 
and caused great rejoicing, and they had all things in common 
and a great multitude was added to them. 

4. The church began on Pentecost with great joy and self- 
denial, but it soon began to lose its first purity and love and 
works till it became so fallen that near the end of the century 
John received a Eevelation in seven open letters reproving their 
fallen state and seven sealed letters concerning *'the things 
which shall come to pass hereafter" till the kingdoms of men 
shall become the kingdom of God and His Christ. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 85 



CHAPTER V. 

Revelation VI. 

THE SEAL OPENER. 

The seal opener stands as a slain lamb in the full gaze of all 
in heaven and on the earth and under the earth with the sealed 
book in his hand and unaided and unattended, opens the seak. 
John had seen him walking in the midst of his golden candle- 
sticks holding his seven stars in his right hand. He then 
wrote seven letters to the churches and addressed them to his 
apostles in form as though they were letter carriers, and in 
those letters the Holy Spirit is associate with him as joint 
author or advocate. 

Having united these as associate powers so closely with 
himself, we notice their striking absence in the labors of seal 
opening. To see Him acting this part alone and entirely aside 
from His apostles raises again the question of method to be 
carefully noted. Xow, in all these seals openings we observe 
the absence of His associate powers, for neither the apostles noi 
the spirit, nor the churches appear by any sign as bearing part. 
He is not now ministering to His candlesticks as a lampadary, 
nor writing them letters as an absent bishop, nor ministering 
through apostles, but is in the attitude of power and stands 
to do His work alone. He is sole receiver of the secret things 
of God which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, known to God 
only, and which angels desire to look into, and about which His 
disciples inquired and were told were things '^kept within 
the Fathers own authority." 

The Father has now given to Him in the sight of the seer 
and of all observers the book of seven secrets, and He, the 



86 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Lion, will break its seals. But to whom will He reveal them? 
To His apostles, those to whom He gave the great commission, 
those through whom in form as though they were present in 
the world He sent the letters which John himself is supposed 
to have carried to Ephesus. To them alone did He give the 
commission of salvation to bear to all the world and said, "Lo! 
I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." How 
strikingly do we identify Him and them in this relation. To 
none but the apostles did He ever impart secrets or explain His 
23arables. Through these seals He will speak again by mys- 
tery as when He spoke on earth having now spoken openly 
through His letters. But as when He explained to His apostles, 
and they to the world after pentecost, so again here. He said 
to them, "That which you hear in the ear, in secret, ye shall 
jDrocIaim upon the housetop.'' All these things spake Jesus to 
the multitude in parables and without a parable spake He not 
unto them. Matt, xiii, 34. ''And His disciples came unto Him 
and said to Him, "Why speakest to them in parables?" He 
answered and said unto them, "Because it is given to you 
to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to them it is 
not given," Matt, xiii, 10. "Unto you it is given to know 
the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to them that are 
without all these things are done in parables, that seeing^ they 
may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not 
understand,^' Mark iv, 11. "At that time Jesus answered and 
said, "I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and the 
prudent and hast revealed them unto babes, even so, Father, 
for so it seemed good in Thy sight." 

Christ and His apostles stand in the same correspondent 
relation here, as seals-opener and trumpeters. As in His world 
ministry He at first spoke openly and then in mystery to the 
people, so He does again, and as He then explained His parables 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 87 

and dark sayings to His apostles so tliey might publish abroad, 
so the trumpets now follow and explain the seals. They 
wear new names, but they perform the same relative parts. The 
parable speaking mystic, Jesns Christ is secret teller or seal 
opener, and is followed by His trumpeters as proclaimers. It 
is only a change of names. The seals and trumpets are Christ 
and His apostles in mystery, publishing the gospel of the future 
as they preached the gospel of fact and faith in time past. 

They each perform seven parts. He breaks seven seals and 
they blow seven trumpets. But they are separated here as 
they were after His ascension; not now as seven stars in His 
right hand which shows their relation as before His crucifixion 
while they still journeyed together and He kept them so that 
none was lost but the son of perdition, but they follow Him 
as after Pentecost. His promise to them was, "Lo, I am with 
you alway even to the end of the world.'^ They are going to 
give us the glad tidings of the future upon the form of the 
Great Commission beginning at Jerusalem at Pentecost. But it 
is in a mystery. We shall see the past in form or pattern, and 
that form being so fixed on the mind, we must be guarded 
against taking the form for the substance, a mistake all hith- 
erto have made. The past and the future are written together 
as shadow and substance, as inscription and superscription. 
Christ and His apostles will now tell us the story of the future 
in a manner so like their relations in the past, that we shall 
be constantly inclined to see only the shadow and miss the 
substance. That which was substance — the gospel in fact — 
now becomes shadow or form for supporting new truth about 
the future known to God only, and that which was shadowed 
as future now becomes substance and reality. "We are to see 
two mental images at once, as we saw the tree and the vine. 
We are to discern things in their essence where they are one. 
We are to know Christ and His apostles by their offices and 



88 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

in new names descriptive of their new parts. They are here 
acting their parts about the future exactly analogous to the 
manner in which they acted in the gospel history under the 
Great Commission. 

Christ takes the initial with opening the seals which answer 
to His teaching by parables^ and the apostles follow with trum- 
pets which correspond to their first proclamations. The seals 
and trumpets are companion parts as Christ and His apostles 
were companion. They Mali also act again a supplementary 
part to the seals and trumpets to be met in the second half 
of the book^ chapters xiii^ xiv, and xv. This supplemental part 
represents them as carrying out the second part as the seals 
and trumpets show the carrying out the first part of the great 
commission. We cannot enter upon the study of the noble 
book at all till we see this larger design or mold in which it 
is cast. Here we are to. meet the second or minor cryptogram, 
or pattern. Our major cryptogram is Creation, which rules in 
the division of the parts acted into categories of seven. These 
two, Creation and the Great Commission, do not comprehend 
all the cryptogramic system, or sign writing, but only the 
larger divisions of it. Every vital fact of sacred history used 
to raise a spiritual truth to view in this book is of the nature 
of a cryptograph or shadowgraph. It is a method in which 
we are called upon to resolve what we are accustomed to know 
as substance, back into shadow, and by mental effort to erect 
the new spiritual substance upon that form, to see the- future 
and unknown, "even as by the things that do appear." For lack 
of the faculty which this practice gives we may remain blind 
and not "be able to see afar off." In this spirit of transcendence, 
]S'oah, Abraham and Moses were enabled to see the coming 
glory of the Lord and to rejoice in its light. Moses saw Creation 
in seven labors, or in seven visions of labor, and he discerned 
what they pointed to, and he said, "The Lord, your God, shall 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 89 

raise up to you a prophet like unto me, Him shall ye hear." 
That is interpreted to refer to Christ, who comes in the sign 
of seven performing the seven great labors of the new creation; 
hence the seven seals opening and the final, the great Sabbath 
rest, toward which creation and all labor looks. There is no 
confusion in these shadowgraphs on which our story is pat- 
terned. As creation in seven labors governs the division of 
parts, in w^hich Christ carries out the New Creation, so also will 
He show the relation of these parts to each other, as that which 
He employed in carrying forward the Great Commission. 
Therefore, in reading the seals and trumpets, we shall see a 
double picture and feel we are reading over again the Gospels 
and Acts of Apostles (more properly Acts of the Holy Spirit) 
and our minds w^ill constantly tend to drop from the spiritual 
future to the historical past. It requires we should bear con- 
stantly in mind that in these Seals and Trumpets we are reading 
the future, the things of hereafter, the secret things, that were 
not known to men, nor to angels, which no one in heaven or 
earth could receive but the slain Lamb only. This requires 
sustained reflection and prescience to attain the blessing of 
understanding. We read a new^ story raised upon the form of 
an old one. We must now turn our attention full upon the 
Great Commission. 

That Commission as given by John himself is, "God so loved 
the w^orld as to give His only begotten Son that whosoever 
believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." 
This has two sides. He that believes shall have eternal life, he 
shall not perish; while he that believes not shall perish. Here 
is a positive and a negative side. This tw^o-sidedness of the 
Commission is in essential harmony with the economy of God 
from the beginning. The two mounts of blessing and cursing — 
Ebal and Gerazim — on which the prophets stood to teach and 
to warn Israel. The two tables of stone on which the laws 



90 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

were inscribed by the finger of God rest on the two trees of 
life and death in the garden which the Lord planted East in 
Eden. The two dreams each of Nebuchadnezzar and of Pharaoh 
and of Joseph all rest on these two trees; so also the two- 
edged sword that proceeds out of His mouth who conquers in 
this story, and the two sides of the book written within and 
without, and the two trees of life that grow by the river of the 
New Jerusalem, all rest upon these two trees in the garden 
East of Eden. The Great Commission has this same duality, 
or two sides of life and death, and as "the things which are 
to come to pass hereafter" are to be conducted on that pattern, 
we have the first part of the Great Commission carried out by 
the Seals and Trumpets, and the second part carried out as by 
Christ and His apostles under changed symbols which fitly 
describe their changed functions yet to appear in their place. 
All the subject matter of the Eevelation of Jesus Christ is 
properly contained under these forms. The carrying out of 
the Commission from the time John was in Patmos, is told in 
mystery, but it is written on the witness of facts. It bears its 
own proof. We have noticed that Christ in receiving these 
seals and opening them acts a single and unattended part as 
carrying out in regard to the conquest of the Avorld powers on 
the ideal shown to Nebuchadnezzar. For in that vision Christ 
was shown as a stone, cut out of the mountain, and as crushing 
the image of world power in His single capacity, with no appear- 
ance of any assistant agencies employed. He performs it alone. 
In this respect He stands head over the united world powers 
in the name and power of God as the king stood over them in 
the name and in the power of flesh and of sin. 

But in the vision given to Daniel to supplement that given 
to the king as the trumpets here supplement the seals, the 
saints and not Christ are seen by Daniel overcoming the world 
powers' and as reigning under Christ. The seals and trumpets 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 91 

sustain these same relations to each other. This fact holds 
together the two great facts that Christ is to conquer and reign, 
but He is to do it through His chosen agencies. This explains 
why it is that in all these seals we do not have any recognition 
of the apostles or churches. Here we challenge the candid 
world to observe that the seal openings, being patterned exactly 
upon Christ's personal ministry^ it not only fulfills the vision, 
as shown to the King of Babylon in regard to his work, but 
that doing so, it also marks the progress of on-going time as 
was there definitely explained by the fact of successive empires. 
The king was told that Christ, the Stone, should destroy the 
image, and the image was declared to be the successive empires, 
the totality of brute power, the four universal empires which 
were to succeed each other in time, ^ot only does the inter- 
pretation which God gave to the king show the progress of 
on-going time in which Christ was to accomplish the destruc- 
tion of brute rule, but the pattern which the seals are directly 
following — that is, the carrying forward of the Great Com- 
mission — shows it equally clear; that is, the on-going not of 
chronological time but as seen by the very nature of the events 
and their changes in time, just as we know that His ministry 
and His death and ascension must have stood to each other in 
this order. Here our cryptogram serves us an unexpected 
purpose. We are assured of the succession of time, not chrono- 
logical but Christological — the only kind of time taken account 
of in this book. We see, then, that as these seals are opened 
we are to note they mark the progress of on-going time; first, 
by the seven acts of Creation on which the work is patterned 
and which are marked as the first day and the second day, the 
third day, etc.; and second, by the on-going of the personal 
ministry of Christ which He here follows; and third, the on- 
going of time declared of the successive empires which He is to 



92 MYSTERY OP 'THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

destroy. Thus in three ways these seal openings show the 
progress of time. 

It is pleasant to follow Christ and His apostles and His 
churches, through their changing offices and relations, and to 
see the correlation of their symbolic names as they stand to each 
other, and to the offices of redemption they are to accomplish. 
We know our Lord first as Jesus, and then as the Christ, and 
then in mystery as Lamp-keeper, and then as Letter- writer, 
then as Seal Opener, then as Eevelator, holding His sealed book 
open, and later as Sower and Harvester, etc. In the same man- 
ner we trace the apostles through their real and mystic func- 
tions. When He is Teacher they are disciples; when He is 
absent He calls them Orphans; when two of them would strike 
down the Samaritans with fire He called them sons of thunder; 
when He is seated on the right hand of God they become 
apostles, sent to do His work; when He is Lampadary, trimming 
His lamps, they no longer on earth are His stars in His right 
hand; when He writes letters to His churches they are His 
carriers; when He opens seals they become his trumpeters, and 
when He is done with giving secrets and cries with a world- 
reverberating voice as of a lion's roar then they are seven 
thunders to make the heavens and the earth shake with the, 
acclamations of the mystery finished, the Revelation revealed. 
So also when He as Harvester is done with sowing and reaping 
and treading the wine-press of the wrath of God, then they 
are the tare burners and pour the seven bowls of wrath upon 
the disobedient. In the same manner we may follow without 
digression and without a doubt to the end the other heavenly 
powders, and also the few elementary principles, the contents of 
its substance, which convey its form and structure through all 
the areas of bold symbols in nature, as heaven, and earth, and 
sea, mountains, rainbows, burning and bloody lakes, and 
abysses, famines, wars, mortals, angels and demons, etc. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 93 

Through them all these few simple threads hold their way and 
help to form them as embroidery within which are contained 
the mystery of the glorious One to come. 

If we take the word church, which means the elect, or called 
out, it undergoes the same symbolic changes correlating with 
the immediate subject and its relations. They are candlesticks 
when viewed as giving the light of God to the world, and as 
lamps, when giving the world light on God as the source of all. 
As related to Christ the churches are His horns, powers, and 
eyes or intelligence, and later they are the temple, the tabernacle, 
the Holy City, the Holy Woman, the camp of the saints and 
the Xew Jerusalem. So, too, the Spirit appearing first as seven 
spirits, and then as joint author and advocate of the seven 
letters, and later is called the Seal of the living God, and at 
last the spirit with the bride calling upon all who will to come 
and drink of the water of life freely. 

This continuity of the few essential elements through the 
entire work both guides our course with certainty and assures 
the greatest coherency. The book of Eevelation itself will 
justify the same variety of symbolic names suited to its nature 
and mission. As a Eevelation from God and from Christ and 
from The Spirit and from one of the Elders and from the Angel 
guide and from John, it is a polyglot of heavenly voices. 

As to its double writing, it is the great cryptogram, shown 
as a book written inside and out. As containing an epitome 
of all the Eevelation of God past, present and future, it may 
well be called the Gospel of the Almighty. As explaining all 
that God had said, and done, and will do, it is the Eevelation 
which He gave to Jesus Christ to show to His servants; and 
as to its structure, it is reticulate, woven of threads of divine 
truth into a Cloth of a Golden age to come. As to its intelli- 
gibility, discarded and called a sealed book, a veil over the eyes 
of spiritual Israel. As to Christ, it is the seamless garment 



94 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

in which He has walked down these centuries nndiscerned and 
unknown as when He walked toward Emmaus after His resur- 
rection. 

He holds the sealed book. The seal breaking will be the 
utterance of seven parables. They will be a kind of chalk out- 
line to be filled in by the trumpeters. Just as in His first 
ministry from the time His enemies sought to destroy Him, He 
spoke in parables and dark sayings and left to His apostles to 
explain after they had received the Holy Spirit, so again will 
it be with the Seals and Trumpets. 

Lying between Christ's ministry proper and the apostles' 
ministry was the day of Pentecost, and so there is a day of 
Pentecost lying between the Seals and Trumpets. While among 
men Christ preached the Gospel in prospect to be perfected 
and made real in His death and ascension, and the apostles 
were to declare it as accomplished fact after the descent of 
the Holy Spirit, so here again the Trumpets will explain after 
an ascension takes place, chapters vii and viii. We are to read 
these Seals as we read Christ's parables in large picture char- 
acters, and the trumpets as we read the plainer sermons in 
the Acts. We are to bear in mind that what follows is spoken 
of a future church which should rise in place of the church then 
decaying. 

SEALS IN GROUPS. 

The Seals are divided into adverse groups of three and four, 
the group of four coming first. In the first group we have 
four horses, one for each seal, and these four horses are brought 
to our attention by the "four living creatures," each one saying 
to John in a voice like thunder, "Come and see." These horses 
are of di^erent colors and are mounted by four riders, accou- 
tered in four different ways, and the fourth horse was given 
authority over the fourth part of the earth, etc. The open 
letters were divided into groups of three and four and marked 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 05 

by the transition of the promise and the Spirit, each taking 
the other's place after the third letter, already explained. 

The two groups of the Seals are marked also by a violent 
change in the character of the symbols nsed, and by the effects 
of the acts performed, etc. The second group has nothing 
corresponding to horses, nor of living creatures, nor of things 
earthly, but it enters a different region, showing souls of the 
slain under the altar, and the heavens in mourning and the 
canopy and the mountains and islands passing away, and the 
last of this group is a silence in heaven for about half an hour. 
Here is a manifest conflict of opposing powers between these 
two groups of seals. 

The four horses bring to view Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the 
great image with its four diverse parts of gold, silver, brass, 
iron, etc. These horses are in the world sign of four. They 
are called to our notice by the four creatures in four separate 
calls. They have four riders equipped in four different ways, 
and the fourth is given power over a fourth part of the earth 
to kill in four different ways. These horses show the same 
superior headship as the image of the king's vision, and they 
show the same decline toward the end. The head of that image 
was gold, the arms and shoulders silver, and ending in iron 
and clay. So here our first horse is white and everything 
white is God's in this book; it is a heavenly sign, and his 
rider having a crown on his head, going forth conquering 
and to conquer, and the last horse is a pale horse, ridden by 
death and followed by Hades. The one thing common to all 
the parts of the king's image was that they were all man. The 
image was that of a man, while here, though, these animals 
differ in color, etc., they are all horses, symbols of war and 
conflict, and these horses are attended by men who also show 
a difference in their missions by their equipments, etc. Now 
the four living creatures we saw about the throne were engaged 



96 mystehy Of the golden cloth ; 

in one and the same matter, praising God, and so here also 
these living creatures perform one and the same office; they 
simply call attention to these four horses. All they do thus 
far is purely ministerial and uniform, though they differ in 
their appearances as a lion, a calf, etc. But these four horses, 
like the four parts of the King's image, differ. They mark dif- 
ferent conditions which must belong to different eras of time. 
They follow the interpretation of the King's dream in showing 
succession and change of times. It was expressly told the king 
that these four parts represent tl\e universal monarchies which 
w^ere to succeed his own, as in fact they did. Daniel's own 
dream of the four great beasts that came up out of the sea 
was explained the same way by the angel of God; that is, that 
they represented the four monarchies in succession. The vision 
of the four horses is another vision of the world powers, not 
of universal monarchies, but of the changing aspects of world 
power in its last monarchy or form, as it goes on toward the 
golden age of the heavenly kingdom, where world power will 
have but one office; that is, to do the will of God. 

These horses mark the changes that are to take place in the 
kingdom of men, beginning with the advent of Christ, till it 
becomes a kingdom of God, and the use of horses as symbols of 
the whole world in strife is well chosen; and at a point later 
in our story we find the whole world at war on horses to accom- 
plish the overthrow of brute rule. It continues to grow more 
evident that the great image of the king's dream, and the four 
beasts shown to Daniel, and the four horses shown to John, 
• are all difTerent manifestations of world power in its changes 
toward the state in which it is represented as four living crea- 
tures around the throne. This is the supreme line of division 
in this book, and the conquest of Christ over the sinful race 
is the object toward which the great tragedy moves. These 
manifestations of brute power are treated in a manner exactly 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 9t 

analogous to that we first met on the side of heavenly power. 
That is, all world powder is one in its enmity to God till the 
last scene where it is shown to be subject and in harmony and 
peace with His power and glory. 

Four is the keynote or battle cry that continues to hold the 
central truth of sin and apostasy to the end when it blends 
with praise and obedience in the same creatures there regen- 
erated. It is therefore a symbol which, taken with these greater 
facts, becomes our unfailing guide in referring all these ele- 
ments to a common w^oe in the fall by sin. In these three 
great visions we notice the man image of the king and the 
four beasts of Daniel and the four horses of John, the first in 
each series is the greatest. The head of the king's image of 
gold, the king of metals, and Daniel's first beast was the lion, 
the head of brutes, and the first horse is the purest of the horses, 
for white is an exclusively heavenly symbol in this book. The 
same decline or decadence is also true of them all. In one it 
is gold as against silver, brass, iron and clay, and in another 
a lion as against a bear and a leopard and a nameless monster, 
and in the last it is a white horse as against a red. a black and 
a pale one. 

The king's image stands on the earth, Daniel's beasts come 
up out of it, and John's horses go forth upon the face of it. 
The king's image is stationary, Daniel's beasts come one after 
another in time, and John's horses follow each other on the 
earth, also showing succession of on-going time. The king's 
vision show^s world power in false glory, as seen by the worldly 
people wdio raise up kings; the vision of Daniel shows world 
power as rising out of the consent of the sinful people as 
viewed by God, while John's vision shows world power in its 
active exercise against the will of God, men upon horses in the 
conflict of these Christian ages. The essential truth within all 
these being the world power or the sin of man undergoing 
7 



98 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

changes on its Avay to the consummation. The symbol of 
horses rests upon Zech. vi, 4-5, identified with the times and 
circumstances of the returning from captivity as type or 
shadow. 

Here is the first appearance of the conflict between the signals 
four and seven. The whole earth in arms is presented in 
the sixth trumpet, a great army of horsemen let loose to make 
war. Still later another army of white horses, a hundred and 
forty-four thousand, at the head of which rides the ruler of the 
kings of the earth, with '^His eyes like a flame of fire and many 
diadems upon His head.^^ 

THE FIRST SEAL. 
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals and I 
heard one of the four living creatures saying, as with a voice of 
thunder, Come, and I saw and beheld a white horse and he that sat 
thereon had a bow, and there was given unto him a crown, and he 
came forth conquering and to conquer. 

The first seal reveals a white horse, the symbol of purity, 
and is, therefore, the head of gold to this new group. His 
rider alone wears a crown. He is an archer with a bow and 
his mission is conquering and to conquer — to conquer is pro- 
phetic. Christ is become the head of world rule. He is 
Emanuel — God with us. He is made the head of principalities 
and powers, has all authority, both in heaven and on earth. 
This is a new cast of the world powers, looking into the future, 
from Patmos at the close of the first century, Christ is that 
head of gold whose kingdom is to increase and fill the earth. 
He is the lion that stands at the head of all world power. As 
the monarch of Babylon stood at the head of all world power 
in sin in the old world, so Christ stands at the head of all 
world power in righteousness in the new. He is "the beginning 
of the creation of God.^^ The monarch of Babylon was idola- 
trous and a beast's heart was given to him, but after his humilia- 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 99 

tion a new heart was given to him. and Josephns tells iis that 
after this he remained a true servant of God the rest of his life. 
Christ or C"hristianity is the white horse with his rider. Christ 
refused the gift of the kingdoms on the terms offered by Satan, 
which the beastly rnlers had always and still continued to 
accept, bnt He won them by His own valor. It is the winning 
of these kingdoms and taking possession of them that this story 
is all about. All the uses of seven are the prophecies and 
pledges of His victory by the fact and presence of creation. 
Seven is itself the union of three Avith four, and hence the 
grouping of four as against three till that union is completed, 
and then the groups are no longer arrayed as in the first series, 
one against the other, which we shall presently see. The three 
will conquer the fotir. Christ, by the death which He suffered 
to save the lost, is not only accounted worthy to open the 
seals, but is made both Lord and Christ, and the kingdoms 
of the world will be awarded at the end of the battles of the 
Lord.'' 

''But we see not yet all things put under him, but we see 
Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffer- 
ing of death crowned with glory and honor.*' 

Chri.st is become the head of all things. He is to rule the 
world in righteousness. He will go down for a little while and 
the blood-red horse will pass over Him, but He will rise again, 
and upon His garments and on His thigh shall be written ^'King 
of Kings and Lord of Lords." For our theme is. He is ruler of 
the kings of the earth, the Alpha and the Omega. There is 
a deep chasm between white and red — they are the flags of 
two hostile powers. The white horse and his crowned rider 
with a bow is Christ as the new head of world rule — the lion 
of the tribe of Judah, the head of Gold, the king who goes into 
a far coimtry and afterwards returns to take account of his 
servants. 

LorC. 



100 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH: 



SECOND SEAL. 

And when he opened the second seal I heard the second living 
creature saying, Come, and another horse came forth, a red horse, 
and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the 
earth and that they should slay one another, and there was given 
unto him a great sword. 

To take peace from the earth, is to attack the Prince of 
Peace. The second seal brings a red horse. Its color is blood 
and its mission is to kill and to destroy, and the rider is given 
a great sword to take away peace from the world, and that they 
might kill one another. The color of this horse is found again 
in the great red dragon, and in the red beast that follows 
him, and we have a lake of blood yet before ns, and the sea 
is reddened with blood, and a lake of red fire awaits the wicked 
at the end. 

We cannot see any mere personality in this horse or his 
rider jnst as we conld not in the white horse, nor in the head 
of gold, etc. True, Daniel said to the king, *^'Thou art the 
head of Gold," but he speaks of him only as representing the 
empire, for when he tells him of his successors he speaks of 
them as empires, and so, too, the first of Daniel's four beasts 
was a lion, which did not represent a person but an empire, 
and the white horse and rider do not represent Christ as only 
a person, but primarily as the representative of heavenly power. 
The red horse represents the world power in its first opposition 
to Christianity. This is the advantage of using colors. This 
J color is the color of all the bloody work, all persecutions of 
' Christ and His followers, and, while it had its greatest fulfill- 
ment in the times closely following the ascension of Christ and 
in the early centuries, it has a fulfillment in all like persecu- 
tions everywhere and always. This horse and his rider show 
this aspect of all world power as against the claims of Christ. 



. OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 101 

The temper oi this world put Christ to death and killed and 
banished His followers, and this Eevelation is to show to God's 
servants the nature of the struggle through the ages to ensue. 
Eed marks the bloody track of sin from angry Cain down 
to this hour. Pagan Eome laid waste the church. "Why do 
the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Herod 
and Pontius Pilate and the people of Israel gathered together 
against the Lord and against His annointed." "The Lord shall 
hold them in derision.^' 

THE THIRD SEAL. 

And when he opened the third seal I heard the third living 
creature saying, Come, and I saw and behold a black horse, and he 
that sat thereon had a balance in his hand, and I heard, as it were, 
a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A measure 
of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny, and 
the oil and the wine, hurt thou not. 

The black horse shows the world in darkness. This is the 
fruit of brute rule. A deep night settled down upon the world 
following the period of the first and greatest persecutions. The 
black horse is mounted by a merchantman, not a soldier. He 
has a balance in his hand and holds auction, selling out heaven 
for oil and wine, miaking merchandise of the word of God and 
the servants of God. This voice comes from the midst of the 
four living creatures. The world powers have taken possession 
of the kingdom by force. The servants He left to take care of 
His kingdom have been unfaithful. Some were killed and others 
corrupted. This merchantman holds a balance; he is carry- 
ing on an auction, selling and weighing out wheat and barley, 
symbols of the word of God, for wine and oil, symbols of com- 
merce, at enormous prices. Sell the word of God and your 
traditions at famine prices and do not hurt or do injury to the 
world's goods. Ah! those who cast lots for His garment have 



102 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

a succession of their own kind who now make merchandise of 
heavenly things and sell out His church as they sold its head 
at the beginning. 

This black horse shows that condition of things we call the 
Dark Ages. We are presently to have that condition of things 
presented in which a great bankrupt sale will be held of con- 
traband stuff as merchandise when there will be no buyers. 
Heavenly things will be degraded to the level of trafliic and 
then sold to those who grope in the dark, but the light will 
break upon a day when no one will buy. 

THE FOURTH SEAL. 

And when he had opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of 
the fourth living creature saying, Come, and I saw and behold a 
pale horse, and he that sat upon him; his name was death and 
Hades followed with him. And there was given unto them au- 
thority over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and 
with famine and with death and by the wild beasts of the earth. 

This horse is the color of death, and his rider is named 
^^Death." This is the end of world power, the end of man's 
glory and the beginning of the heavenly. The iron feet and 
toes of the great image were mixed with clay and easily broken. 
The stone cut out without hands was to strike the image on 
the feet. From the white horse to this pale one the colors 
show that decline, and at last Death has overtaken the long 
reign of brute power. The changes which were to occur in 
the world from gold to silver and from silver to brass, and to 
iron has the same illustration in these colors and equipments, 
illustrating the general characteristics of world power from the 
time of John's writing till the end. It was then in the hands 
of the Caesars, whose power broken, should be the beginning 
of the destruction of all power adverse to God. The white 
horse is the kingdom of heaven begun, the red horse the bloody 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 103 

sword that drove it from the field, the black horse the dark 
ages of ^he ghouls that rob the dead, and last, the pale horse 
of death and hell, the decay of brnte dominion, to be followed 
by the establishment of the kingdom of heaven to have domin- 
ion forever and ever. There is still at this hour blood and 
darkness in the earth, but they shall never prevail as in the 
past. 

This pale horse points to the time when the thrones are 
to be set and the ancient of days shall sit, and judgment be 
given to the saints. It is to be noted here that the plural is 
twice used in these seals where the subject is singular. In 
the second seal it is said "that they should slay one another" 
and in the fourth seal, ''And there was given unto them author- 
ity over a fourth part of the earth, etc. This shows the repre- 
sentative character of these horses as the spirits of the people 
of these epochs that fgllowed each other. 

It is said that Death and Hades followed this dead horse. 
What a horrid and thrilling picture of the end of all beast 
worship, and of rebellion against the will of God. But not 
all persons were worshipers of brute power. Some had borne 
testimony for Christ. That meant martyrdom or exile. The 
red horse had passed over them and their voices hushed on earth 
must be heard again from beyond. The newly awakened idea 
of immortality, brought to light by Jesus Christ, had left burn- 
ing in the hearts of His followers the deepest and tenderest 
question that was ever put up to heaven for its pity. Against 
all the contradictions of a sinful world they had espoused the 
hope of a heavenly kingdom and the speedy coming of the 
Lord; and from hearts most sorely tried they had asked, 
"What of our beloved dead whose lives have paid the penalty 
of their love for Jesus? Wliere are they?" They were in dis- 
tress for their dead. 

Prompt as the voice of God from the seat of mercy when 



104 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

faithful Abel's body lay warm and bleeding near his smoking 
altar and his soul crying from earth to rebuke his murderer, 
so here again the voice com_es from the heavens to tell the story 
of those who had fallen at the altar for Christ under the bloody 
hands of Cain's true successors. 

THE SECOND OR HEAVENLY GROUP. 
THE FIFTH SEAL. 

The second group is an answer to the first. The fifth seal 
answers the question raised to God from the myriads of an- 
guished hearts, "Where are our dead?" Ah, and they cried too. 

And when lie had opened the fifth seal I saw under the altar the 
souls of them that had been slain for the word of God and for the 
testimony which they held, and they cried with a great voice, say- 
ing. How long, O Master, the Holy and the True, dost thou not 
judge and avenge our blood upon them thai dwell on the earth? 

Them that dwell on the earth means the wicked. It is used 
many times. It means settled down upon, or rooted in the 
earth, and not simply those who sojourn upon it. These 
precious souls had left the world under a load of obloquy and 
shame, accused, but not convicted of wrong, and so condemned 
and put to death, but are not dead. Their offense was trying 
to save wicked men from their own sins. They had been driven 
from this world in the roll of criminals and now they cry for 
vindication. Their Master who was denied judgment and put 
to death as a criminal under the brute powers was made alive 
forever more, and He has the keys of death and hell and He 
hears the cry of heart pain from the injustice of the judgments 
they have suffered. 

And there was given to them each a white robe and it was said 
unto them that they should rest yet for a little time until their 
fellow servants and their brethren which should be killed, even as 
they were, should be fulfilled. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 105 

This is an echo from the resurrection of Christ, the first fruits, 
and afterward them that rest or sleep in Jesus. Tlie old sin- 
ning world could not see beyond His death nor the graves of 
His followers. But, like faithful Abel, they speak from where 
they fell at the altar. 

John, who had the greatest, calmest soul of all men here 
in this solitary place, hears this cry from the martyrs and sees 
the white robes given to them, and hears the promise made 
that their cry for avengement on them that dwell upon the 
earth shall be heard after their rest of "a little while.'^ The 
world's victories are only seeming. Ah! sinful man, where 
is thy brother? He answers back to you clothed in white and 
resting in the promise of Christ. Why do the heathen rage 
and the people imagine a vain thing, the kings of the earth 
set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the 
Lord and against His annointed, saying, "Let us break their 
bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that 
sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them 
in derision.^' And being let go, the disciples went to their own 
company and repeated all that the chief priests and elders had 
said to them, and they lifted up their voices to God with one 
accord and said "Lord, Thou art God which hath made heaven, 
and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is who by the 
mouth of Thy servant hath said why do the heathen rage and 
the people imagine a vain thing, for of a truth against Thy 
Holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast annointed, both Herod and 
Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the children of Israel were 
gathered together.'^ But they are doomed. The stone cut out 
of the mountain without hands shall crush them and become 
the mountain that shall fill the earth. Christ has promised 
to hear that cry from beneath the altar. "I say unto you He 
shall speedily avenge them," 



106 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

THE SIXTH SEAL. 
CRUCIFIXION OF THE WORLD POWERS. 

The sixth Seal brings us to the climax. God finished His 
works on the sixth day; on the sixth day He made man, and 
in the sixth Seal Christ shall conquer him; in every presenta- 
tion of the world powers under whate^'er symbols they all end 
in disaster. They stand to the rising tide of heavenly power 
as an anti-climax. While Christ was in the world He grew 
more pronounced and less popular till they put Him to death. 
Though He could call twelve legions of angels to His defense, 
yet, ^^as a Lamb is dumb before its shearer, so He opened not 
His mouth." But of that judgment and execution there is to 
be a reversal from a higher court. When, in the close of Seals 
time, Christ shall grapple anew with the powers of darkness. 
They shall fall and He shall be conqueror and shall rise and 
rule with a rod of iron. 

In the fifth seal He promised the crying souls beneath the 
altar that in a "little time" they should be avenged. That time 
has come and Christ returns judgment and execution upon the 
enemy. This execution takes on the form and symbolism of a 
crucifixion. Ah! the manner of His own death was by a cruel 
crucifixion; so ended His first ministry of teaching in parables, 
■but His second ministry of breaking seals is to end in putting 
the enemy to death, a retaliation in kind, by a mightier cruci- 
fixion. When Christ was crucified the earth did quake and 
the rocks were rent open and the sun was darkened and His 
disciples were frightened away and they fled and hid themselves 
from the face of the angry world powers. 

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal and there was a great 
earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the 
whole moon became as blood and the stars of heaven fell to the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 107 

earth as a fig tree casts her unripe figs when she is shaken of a 
mighty wind; and the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is 
rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their 
places. And the princes of the earth and the chief captains, and the 
rich, and the strong, and every bondman, and freedman, hid them- 
selves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and they say 
to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the 
face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the 
Lamb for the great day of their wrath is come, and who is able to 
stand? 

Would tliey but hear it the answer is given in advance. ^'He 
that liatli a pnre heart who hatli not lifted up his soul nnto 
vanity.'' "He that overcometh.'' At His own crucifixion His 
timid and frightened disciples fled, for the shepherd was smit- 
ten and the sheep of the fold were scattered abroad, but here 
in this mightier crucifixion of the enemy the princes of the 
earth and the chief captains and the rich and the strong, and 
with them the rabble, the bond and free, shall slink away 
and hide themselves in the opening rocks and in the dark 
mountain caves, and shall call upon the rocks and the moun- 
tains to fall upon them and to hide them from the face of Him 
who sits offended on the throne and from the wrath of the 
Lamb. ''The day of His wrath has come; who is able to stand?'' 

When He was crucified the veil of the temple which divided 
the holy from the most holy place was rent from top to bottom, 
but now the heavens are rent and rolled up like a scroll. The 
islands and mountains that trembled then are now moved out 
of their places. When on His way to crucifixion, consigned 
by the world povrers, and led by the soldiers and the mob, 
bearing His own cross, there followed .Him a great company 
of people and of women which also bewailed and lamented Him, 
but Jesus turned to them and said, '^'Daughters of Jerusalem, 
weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children, 
for behold the days are coming in the which they shall say, 



108 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

^Blessed are the barren that never bear^ and the breasts that 
give no sustenance/ Then shall they begin to say to the moun- 
tains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us, for if they do these 
things in the green tree what shall be done to them in the 
dry?" 

Eighteous judgment has overtaken them. Their crucifixion 
day has come and what they did in the green tree has re- 
turned to them in the dry. Ah! ha! the cry and wail now come 
from the other side. The altar from which the martyrs cried 
for avengement gives forth a solemn Amen to the execution, 
xvi, 7. 0, the painful sight. "Hide us from the face of Him 
that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." 
His wounds still testify to their crime and the wailing cries of 
His persecuted and crying disciples are still ringing in their ears. 
He stands now where every one can see Him, and they that 
pierced Him and all the- tribes of the earth shall njourn over 
Him. The voice for revenge is answered and the crucifiers 
are crucified. Infinite and loving pity has no other so tender 
expression as this, wherein Christ's innocence made manifest is 
the greatest pain to His enemies. While breaking these seals 
John sees Him standing as a lamb slain. He tells the outcome 
of the contest, the world powers put to death by the striking 
imagery of His own crucifixion. 

The fourth seal, with its pale horse and his rider. Death, 
showed us only that the reign of man had ended, and the sixth 
seal, w^hich speaks on the other side, tells us how it is done — 
by a crucifixion. Thus we see how these groups of seals assist 
each other to tell the story, and how valuable the structure in 
assigning the parts to their own places. We are at this moment 
living in the sixth seal, if we read the signs aright. Brute rule 
in the earth is breaking now, and the power of God is advanc- 
ing as indeed for a long time, but the struggle may be hard 
before the triumph is won. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 109 

The whole story has now been told except the seventh seal, 
which ushers in the Sabbath. It announces the end. These 
seals cover all of Eevelation time. They tell ns the whole story, 
on both sides, bnt they tell it only as related to the part which 
Christ bore in His own oihce, as the stone cut ont of the moun- 
tain to crush the great image. The story as now told has this 
limit; that is, it has special reference to His conquest of the 
world powers considered as having conspired to reject Him 
and His kingdom. 

Here we look for the seventh Seal only to note its conspicu- 
ous absence from its place. It is not in due order. Something 
has displaced it not hitherto discovered. The matter which 
follows shows a break, and seemingly quite alien and unrelated 
to what has gone before. All the commentators wdiose work I 
have examined have stranded at this point. The disturbing 
cause must be understood. It is the cryptograph or pattern 
which governs the relations of these seals to each other and 
also to the trumpets. It is the Great Commission. This is the 
divine order and it supersedes all other arrangements. It gov- 
erns the structure. Christ's ministry was not ended by His 
death but by His ascension and His sending the Holy Spirit 
which He promised His apostles would be given them to con- 
vict the world of His righteousness and seal their judgment, 
etc. 

This gift of the Spirit was to precede the proper ministry of 
the apostles. The conferring of this gift was a part of His 
ministry, and after its descent on the day of Pentecost His min- 
istry was fulfilled, being committed to His apostles with the 
promise of His presence and the guidance of the Spirit. The 
fac-simile of this now appears in .mystery here in this sixth 
seal and before the seventh. We have the ascending angelwho 
bears aloft the seal of the living God, the Holy Spirit, which 
none could bear but He; and which none but He could ad- 



110 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

minister from on high. His Seal opening ministry has a sup- 
plement before He enters into His rest, to be shown by the 
seventh seal. So governed by these facts of His first ministry, 
we are to have in form a new ascension bearing away the prom- 
ise of the Spirit and a day of Pentecost, as at the first, and 
then He will open the Sabbath seal, bnt not till then, for so 
the pattern rules. That fact exactly explains the displacement 
of the Seventh Seal and all the forms attending leave not a 
doubt of its governing the order in this way. 

The Sixth Seal brings us forward to a place where the world 
powers are crucified and a time when He will re-establish His 
kingdom by a power which is given upon the form and credit 
of the first Pentecost. The very form and tenor of what fol- 
lows the sixth seal, and precedes the seventh, shows plainly 
that we are following again the great facts about His ministry, 
only they are, as we shall find, swollen into greater dimensions. 
He has ended His six great seal opening labors by a retaliation 
upon the brutish world that killed Him, and now we may look 
for that mystic ascension to follow. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Balance or scales: Spiritual merchandise; trade mark; number 
or name of beast; bankruptcy, etc. 

Souls under altar: The seed caught away, 12; the martyrs; the 
blessed dead. 

White: Crystal; pure; bright; white linen; sealed on the fore- 
head; virgins, etc. 

Red: Blood; death; sin. 

Black: Merchandise; marked on the hand; darkness. 

Pale: Death; hell; judgment; vintage of the earth; winepress 
of God's wrath. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. Ill 

CHAPTEEYL 

Revelation VII. 

THE MEETING GROUND.— MYSTIC PENTECOST. 

"The shepherd was smitten and the sheep were scattered 
abroad." "I will not leave yon comfortless. I will send the 
comforter which is the Holy Spirit. He shall teach yon all 
things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I 
have said nnto you." 

The halo of the Pentecost was a reply to the black Friday of 
crucifixion. His timid disciples, frightened by the mob, fled 
and hid themselves. The coward soldiers that guarded the tomb, 
appalled at the sight of the angel that rolled away the stone, 
were stricken with panic and broke discipline and fled away, 
regardless of Roman law and penalty and were suborned to 
swear that the disciples had come and stolen away His body 
while they slept; and Herod, to whom truth was such a stranger 
that he asked "What is truth?" released them on this false 
pretense. The day of Pentecost must cement the ministry cut 
off by His death. "I will come to you again," is His promise. 
The Pentecost is to be both a supplement to Christ's ministry 
and a preface to the ministry of His apostles. But it is more. 
It is heaven's reply to earth; it is Christ's answer to Herod 
and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel. 
It is "the great day of the Lord." The broken link shall be 
welded and the verdict of the courts below shall be reversed, 
and the frightened disciples shall receive power from on high, 
when the Holy Spirit is come. "N"ow I go my way to Him that 
sent me and none of you asketh me whither goest Thou. It 
is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the 



112 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTtt; 

Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send 
Him unto you. And when He is come He will reprove the 
world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, be- 
cause they believed not on me; of righteousness because I go to 
my Father, and of judgment because the prince of this world 
is judged." 

On the day of Pentecost Christ must set His seal upon His 
apostles and upon His work, and here they must stand before 
the sinful world powers as He had done, but under new condi- 
tions. Here He is to be declared as risen from the dead and 
ascended to the right hand of God and made both Lord and 
Christ on the very spot where judgment was denied to Him 
and He was turned over to the mob. He told Pilate 
that he could have no power against Him except it were 
given to him from above. The apostles had already re- 
ceived the Great Commission to go and preach to all 
nations but had also received a countermand to "tarry in 
Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high." "For 
the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet 
glorified." When He had charged them that they should bear 
witness for Him in Jerusalem and to the uttermost parts of 
the earth, while they' beheld, "He was taken up and a cloud 
received Him out of their sight, and they stood gazing into 
heaven." His ascension was necessary to the day of Pentecost 
and a preparation for it. Upon this great event the preaching 
and the kingdom must wait. It was to enlist the apostles under 
the Great Commission to carry out its provisions. On that day 
He conferred the Spirit and sealed with the seal of God a 
great number of persons, given as about three thousand souls, 
wrested from the enemy and they continued together and had 
all things in common. The day of Pentecost works a great 
change in the relative position of all the actors who had taken 
part in the great tragedy. These parts we must keep clearly in 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 113 

mind for we are following in this gospel narrative of fact the 
pattern of heavenly things to come in a mystery. 

That which is vital to the story is that Christ having been 
put to death by the w^orld powers ascended on high, bearing 
with Him the promise of the Spirit which He shed forth after 
He had been glorified and by whose power He confronted the 
world powers and won a victory of three thousand souls from 
the enemy, "men out of every nation under heaven, and they 
that believed were together and had all things common, and 
day by day continued with one accord in the temple praising 
God and having favor with all the people.^' 

Christ having now fulfilled His ministry entered upon His 
rest, leaving His apostles in full commission and power to carry 
forward His kingdom. He now ceased from His labor as God 
did from His. The part which the apostles acted and the part 
which the world powers acted are to be seen later. We are 
looking directly at the part which He bore. We are prepared 
to read the relations which Christ mystically sustains to the 
world power. 

And after this I saw four angels (world powers) standing on the 
four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth 
(possessing the power) that no wind should blow on the earth or on 
the sea or upon any tree. And I saw another angel ascend from 
the sunrise having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a 
great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the 
earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the 
trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads, 
and I heard the number of them that were sealed a hundred and 
forty and four thousand sealed out of every tribe of the children of 
Israel. 

In the time of the sixth seal or between the sixth and sev- 
enth, we are to have a great revival for a second church ex- 
pressed in the imagery of a Pentecost, just as we had the world 
8 



114 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

powers destroyed under the forms and imagery of a crucifixion. 
But that phase of the Pentecost presented here is the part which 
Christ bears as of Himself and unattended, as already explained. 
It shows His changed relations to the world powers as being 
now able to command them in greater numbers than at the 
first Pentecost. He commands the world powers mystically, 
that is, the four world angels, that represent the total of world 
power. The other part acted on the day of Pentecost will 
be given in mystery in the trumpets, etc. The Great Commis- 
sion as carried out by the Christ and the Spirit and apostles, 
is the pattern and seems to have escaped the attention hitherto, 
partly because the facts are given a different division and analy- 
sis. It is differently divided, for Christ's entire part in the 
Pentecost is given first and then the apostle's part. The Great 
Commission has been perverted from its true proportion and 
true purport to controversial ends, hence arises an obstacle to 
the discernment of its form lying here. 

Admit that this story of the future is ruled on the pattern 
of the things that are past, and we have not only a sure guide, 
but we may even have a proof of the correct purport of that 
commission. We now stand between the seals and trumpets 
as upon the day of Pentecost we would stand between Christ 
and the apostles. As Christ finished His world labors, and 
ascended on high bearing away the promise of the spirit which 
was to come and convict the world powers by a manifestation 
of divine power which they could not arrest and which is to 
justify His claim, so is the fact to occur in the sixth seal; that 
is, a new church is to rise out of the old first one and it is 
given in the forms of the first. Here are in form again Herod 
and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the people of Israel, 
or the four world powers, called the four angels, shown to the 
king and to Daniel under different forms, and now at a point 
and a time hereafter to be clearly identified as the Great Refor- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 115 

mation we have Christ rising again and ascending, bearing 
the*seal of the living God to seal a great new church of men 
of every nation^ etc. Upon the historic substance of the gospel 
is superimposed this fore gleam of the future; that gospel in 
this case being but shadow, and the things to occur in the 
sixth seal being the substance of this story told in a mystery. 
This is the prophecy of a second church of which we shall 
see clearly at points presently to appear. 

Here are four angels; they are world angels as seen, 1st, by 
their number, four; and 2d, by their standing on the four cor- 
ners of the earth, while the angel of God is ascending with the 
seal, etc.; and 3d, by their holding the four winds of the earth, 
that is, so they will not disturb the waters that bring forth 
beasts and that destroy the heavenly inheritance, "the earth 
and the trees and the sea." It must be noticed since His ascen- 
sion Christ claims ownership and authority over all things in 
heaven and in earth. Now when Christ ascended He disputed 
the hitherto unlimited control of the evil powers that put Him 
to death and three thousand at once turned aAvay from the 
verdict that had put Him to death and enlisted under His au- 
thority as loyal followers. 

While these four angels are still in possession of the world 
power (holding the winds) John sees another angel ascending 
from the East or sunrising, '^having the seal of the living God," 
to contest their power. This identifies the part or function of 
Christ. 1. No one else ever ascended bearing the seal of God. 
That seal is the symbol for the Holy Spirit. 2. No one else 
could command a restraint upon the world powers; and 3, no 
one else could seal the servants of God on the forehead. He is 
further identified by rising in the East, that is, where the morn- 
ing star rises, and He is called "the Bright and Morning Star." 
These four world angels present to view the condition of the 
world powers at the time here identified as the great Reforma- 



116 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tion. They are still in possession of the earth, and instead of 
their separately marking the progress of time, as the seals* do, 
these four angels are all engaged at the same time in- the same 
affair and have no distinguishing marks to separate them as 
by progressive periods or separate functions, but come between 
two seals as at one point of time. This distinction is vital. So 
it was at the crucifixion Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gen- 
tiles and the people of Israel stood against Him. But as at 
the coronation of Christ and the gift of the Spirit He was 
enabled to put a limit upon the unrestrained exercise of world 
authority, so now He is able again to call a greater restriction 
and to enlist a vastly greater number of loyal subjects. It is 
the second church. The same care taken for the symbol value 
of four, as four angels, four corners of the earth, four winds 
of the earth, etc., is here also given to three as a signal for 
heavenly origin. Here we have the first sharp conflict between 
the signals three and four. 

The things which the world angels are commanded not to 
hurt are the earth, and sea, and trees, and immediately the 
figure is changed and we find what is meant by the earth, sea 
and trees is the people, out of whom a great number is sealed. 
The angel who ascends with the seal is He whom the Father 
hath sealed and who promised to seal His chosen ones. "He 
cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was 
given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, ^Hurt not the 
earth, neither the sea, till we have sealed the servants of God 
on their foreheads.' And I heard the number of them which 
were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand sealed out 
of every tribe of the children of Israel." To seal them on their 
foreheads was to cause them to understand, to claim the intelli- 
gence and as at the first Pentecost He was able to call a halt 
on and to limit His enemy by enlisting three thousand. He is 
now able in the likeness of that fact to claim a much greater 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 117 

number; and as those He converted then were devout Jews out 
of every nation under heaven, so again, to preserve the sub- 
stance on the pattern given, it says the multitude sealed were 
"of all the tribes of Israel," and it has only this kind of ref- 
erence to Israel and no reference to Hebrew flesh. To take 
this as a reference to the Jews would tear into fragments the 
greatest allegory ever given to the world and leave this book 
a wreck as hitherto. He is speaking to the new Spiritual Israel, 
and which we shall see again and again, as we proceed, can be- 
long-only to the great revival or Reformation. 

To seal just twelve thousand out of the twelve tribes, which 
are hterally no more to be found, and that so definite a num- 
ber should be sealed out of each, seems upon its face to be 
a hard and arbitrary interpretation. Besides, the twelve tribes 
are not given in their proper order, and the tribes of Ephraim 
and of Dan, which were so closely associated with idolatry, are 
properly left out of the enumeration as unfit for even symbolic 
use, and the names of Joseph and Levi take their places, show- 
ing that the whole is mystical and allegorical. 

But the day of Pentecost was followed by the conversion later 
of a great multitude which was not numbered; so here, besides 
the one hundred and forty-four thousand out of each of the 
tribes of Israel John says: 

After these things I saw and behold a great multitude, which no 
man could number, out of every nation, and of all tribes and peo- 
ples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb 
arrayed in white robes, etc. 

This multitude differs from the one hundred and forty-four 
thousand only as the great multitude converted in the after- 
math of Pentecost differed from those converted on that great 
and notable day of the Lord. They are not two classes nor 
in two separate worlds, but they are one and in one company. 
There is no death line between them, only they are closely 



118 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

following that historic pattern which accounts for the entire 
arrangement of these seals and trumpets and their belongings. 
Many attempts to make these appear as Jews and Gentiles, 
and as celestial and terrestrial beings failed of intelligibility, 
because it was not discerned that the story told by the Seals 
and Trumpets articulate upon the w^orking plan of Christ and 
His apostles in carrying out the Great Commission. This is 
the' new Pentecost. This method once conceded, w^e see great 
coherency and dignity in the work, and though the shadow- 
graph which guides may first appear dim, it deepens with at- 
tention into a faithful pattern and is faithfully followed out. 

Thus we see that the day of Pentecost, and the events that 
led up to it and the events that followed from it, is preserved 
here in outline and in the relations as they w^ere then under- 
stood, and that upon this outline the foreview of the ages 
is being actually fulfilled before our eyes except the personali- 
ties which are cancelled at the start. This is a balm for a 
troubled heart. It is of untold interest that w^e are witnesses 
to the changes in the affairs of this world here described, changes 
we believed were to occur, but did not know they were set 
down in this book. We have noticed that the world powers, 
as seen in the dream of the king's image, and as seen in Dan- 
iel's dream of the four beasts, and in John's vision of the four 
horses, all mark the progress of on-going time, but here in 
these four world angels, and in two other instances at least, 
these world powers do not mark the on-going time, but pre- 
sent their condition at a certain point of time where they act 
together in a single function. These three instances are, 1, 
when they stand on the four corners of the earth holding the 
four winds of the earth, 2, when they are bound at the great 
Eiver Euphrates, which w^e shall presently see, and 3, when 
they sit as four living creatures around the throne serving God 
and saying, "Holy, holy, holy! is the Lord God Almighty!" 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 119 

That we may not take His sealing of the saints on the fore- 
head in too personal a sense as to Christ's own act, we notice 
the plural is used — till we have sealed the servants of God, etc. 
Christ truly seals them but not without the mediums of His 
Spirit, His Apostles, His Churches, etc. 

Beginning with verse nine we have the aftermath of this 
mystic Pentecost. As those at Jerusalem, after Pentecost, had 
all things common and sold their possessions and continued 
together in perfect unity, so we here follow that pattern. These 
all stand before the throne, the entire host, the one hundred 
and forty and four thousand, and the multitude now in one com- 
pany stand before the throne of God and serve and praise Him. 

It is to be borne in mind that since Christ removed the veil 
in the temple at His death, so has He in fact removed the 
veil between the Holy and the Most Holy places in this dis- 
pensation; so that all the saints stand before God in one com- 
pany without division, being all militant and all triumphant. 
Between them all and the throne of God there is no veil. The 
teaching of John in His gospel is "He that believeth hath eter- 
nal life," not that he shall have it, but now and here. To be 
arrayed in white robes is to have the righteousness of Christ, 
and to have palms in our hands is to celebrate His glory. Here 
is the scene of the community of all saints praising God and hav- 
ing all things in common, both which are in heaven and in 
earth. Now all things are yours and ye are Christ's and Christ 
is God's. 

They cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation to our God which 
sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were 
standing round about the throne and about the elders and the four 
living creatures and they fell before the throne on their faces and 
worshiped God, saying, Amen! blessing and glory and wisdom and 
thanksgiving and honor and power and might be unto our God for- 
ever and ever Amen! And one of the elders answered and said 



120 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

unto me, These which are arrayed in white robes, who are they, and 
whence came they? 

The question is directly raised, "Who are these ?'^ and the 
answer puts the matter to rest. What a personal experience 
was this for the seer-^a very old man weeping much at the 
sight of a sealed book which no one in heaven or on earth or 
under the earth could loose, and while his eyes are still wet 
with tears, sees this multitude in white which no man can num- 
ber, all glorious and happy, saved in Christ, and he himself 
addressed by one of the elders and asked who are these arrayed 
in white robes and whence came they? Ah! he did not know. 
Daniel did not know what his vision meant, and had to ask 
the angel to explain, so John answers the elder who addressed 
him, "My Lord, thou knowest.'' He ventured no part in the 
aw^ful drama. He told us at the first that he fell at his Mas- 
ter's feet like one dead. The elder explains to him, "And he 
said unto me these are they that come out of the great tribula- 
tion and they washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb." These include the souls under the altar. 
The great tribulation describes the condition of the church till 
the kingdom come. John had said, "I am your brother in the 
tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ." Washed 
in the blood of Christ and made white means that they were 
sealed on the forehead, that is, saved by Christ. The souls 
under the altar had received white robes given to them. "The 
white linen is the righteous acts of the saints." The souls un- 
der the altar were disclosed to view to answer a special ques- 
tion, but these are presented to ask and answer a general one. 
All the saints in Christ living and dead are presented to view 
in this throng. These were they who had borne, and all who 
ever would bear, testimony for Christ. The word in the Greek 
for bearing witness and the word for martyr are the same. It 
is not supposable that any class of martyrs or saints would here 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 121 

be shown as against or in discrimination of any other class, 
but showing them all in one relation to the throne adds to 
the unity and simplicity of the story. It is exactly the place 
to show this fact coming after the Pentecost, where all were 
together and had all things in common; not only the three 
thousand who were in on the day of Pentecost, and heard the 
apostles speak as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, but the 
great multitude that came after and was not numbered, all in 
one undivided company. 

That the one hundred and forty and four thousand are sealed 
and numbered and recorded, and as coming out of the twelve 
tribes of Israel, is only preserving the form of that actual Pente- 
cost where they were present at the descent of the Spirit and 
were numbered three thousand and are said to have been of 
^"devout Jews out of every nation under heaven;" but in these 
things only did they differ from those who came to Christ later. 
The same follows in this mystic Pentecost, and at first we 
are strongly inclined to think that the sealed and numbered 
company is a different company from those who stand as a 
multitude before the throne, but the difference is made en- 
tirely to coincide with the pattern on which it is expressed and 
preserved. It is the relation that we see between the three 
thousand of Pentecost and the great company converted after 
Pentecost. But it also shows that God takes account of His 
saints, and not only has He commanded and secured an abey- 
ance of the world powers to reclaim souls from their service 
to His own, but that while no man can number the host in 
this. His second greater <?hurch, our present reformation, God 
knows and seals and numbers and records them every one. 
John says, "I heard the number of them that were sealed.'^ 
He did not see them or number them himself. But of the 
others he says, "I saw the multitude before the throne in white 
and it w^as such as no man can number.'^ This use of the defi- 



122 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

nite and indefinite not only follows the Pentecost, and after 
Pentecost, conversions, but it also strongly implies God's care 
for His people now as tlien. At the Jerusalem Pentecost it 
is said, "They continued from day to day in the temple wor- 
shiping God, etc.," and here the same fact is expressed, for 
they are "Standing before the throne of God, and they serve 
Him day and night in His temple." In the new song which 
they fcing, iv, 10^ it is said, "and they shall reign npon the 
earth." 

Of the first Pentecost it is said the Lord added to the church 
such as were saved, and here it says, "He shall spread His taber- 
nacle over them, etc." This shows the same care of His sec- 
ond church as for the first. 

These are they which came out of great tribulation and they 
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, 
therefore are they before the throne of God and they serve him day 
and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on his throne shall 
spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun strike upon them, 
nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall be their shepherd and shall guide them unto fountains of 
waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. 

This entrancing picture of the happiness of the saints causes 
the mind not only to ask, who are these, which is here answered, 
but, "when shall these things be?" He is telling us these 
things of the second church, the present and all the saved in 
one undivided company. These are present facts but they are 
taken mostly in the light of joyful anticipations, just as the 
first disciples were happy and glorious in the assurance of eter- 
nal life, though they were then being hunted down and perse- 
cuted and put to death. We are looking upon the new com- 
munity of saints by the pattern of the old, only while it fol- 
lows that pattern its symbols show a greatly augmented com- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 123 

.pany witli the same happy aspects. A state of great rejoicing 
in this world is the true and^ normal condition of the saved. 
They have "fled from the wrath to come;" they have "passed 
from death unto life;" they "have eternal life," and its full 
fruition lends advance installments of peace on earth and glory 
to God in the highest. 

Kot only does the whole comipany of the saints, but the El- 
ders and the four living creatures appear here in their place 
about the throne; and in all the great oratorios where they ap- 
pear as though they were present at all these great changes. 
These great praises are the Millennium choruses sung as though 
they were present, just as the use of seven presupposes the tri- 
umph already won and as that the saints now have eternal life. 
Hymns have no chronology, neither in this book nor in our 
own usage. We sing "On Jordan's stormy banks I stand," or 
"By cool Siloam's shady rill" or "I'll soon be at home over 
there," and never think of being asked "when?" We sing 
pa3ons of our faith and hope. So we observe that as we move 
on in the progress of our story the oratorios make note of the 
passing changes till they break out at the last with one grand 
burst of thunderous praise, "The kingdom of men has become 
the kingdom of God and His Christ." 

We are now doing in fact the very thing shown here. Our 
advances can be seen in a measure by the changes in our hymns. 
The saints standing about the throne worshiping is the per- 
manent condition of our lives, if we are indeed washed from 
our sins in the blood of the Lamb, and as this picture is con- 
nected with this great mystic Pentecost it is telling us what 
belongs to us at this time and what belongs to all the saints 
till the end". There is at our first reading an impression of 
place and of time which hinders our seeing the deeper essential 
truth. These are said to be standing about the throne, or be- 
fore the throne, as though they were in a heavenly world above, 



124 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

but it is not so in fact. There is no sucli division recognized. 
The Elder sa3^s, "These are they that came np out of great 
tribulation/' as if they had risen from the earth, but that they 
serve Him day and night in His temple, which is on earth, 
now annexed to heaven with no visible seam, and that He 
shall spread His tabernacle over them, which is itinerant, as 
though they were moving onward, and that the Lamb shall lead 
them to fountains of water of life as a shepherd does his flock. 
All this is unintelligible till we look above our accustomed re- 
finements and distinctions, which a thousand theorists have 
spun like webs over our minds and of which the Apocalypse 
is oblivious. We are used to just such symbolic language in 
the gospels and in our preaching, but we do not at once and 
readily recognize it when v/e see the familiar facts in this new 
dress. 

The preacher will say in the same sermon that we are in 
the Christian fellowship, that is, in the same ship as at sea, 
having a common fate or fortune, and that we are His disciples, 
that is, are in the schoolroom with the teacher, and that we 
are good soldiers, that is, marching or in battle with our captain, 
etc.; that we are at the sam^e time in a ship on the sea, and 
in a schoolhouse, and marching on the field, we understand 
is but telling the same general fact under different forms and 
which are not, when taken spiritually, inconsistent, but taken 
literally are absurd. 

Literally, we could not hold all these relations and places at 
the same time, but we now stand before God's throne with our 
face unveiled, for Christ our Priest has taken away the veil in 
the rending of His own flesh, and so the saved are one family 
in one large place. John in exile and now his face, still wet 
with tears, hears it said that God shall "wipe away every tear," 
and He is near enough to do it, for He is near enough as a 
shepherd to lead us. John is addressed personally and here 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 125 

quotes himself as having stammered out the words in reply 
to the elder, "And I say unto him 'My Lord, thou knowest/ " 
He had felt the right hand of his Lord laid upon him, had 
heard Him speak, had taken up His pen to write and did write 
this book. He was called upon with a voice as a voice of a 
trumpet saying, "Come up hither," and in the spirit he went 
forward to view the end, to see "the things that shall come to 
pass hereafter." He now hears this redeemed multitud^^, shout 
with joy "Salvation to our God." He had once stood upon 
the Holy Mount where Christ stood in glistening raiment talk- 
ing to Moses and Elijah about the things concerning His death, 
but it was a bolder apostle than he who then dared to stammer 
a proposal for three tabernacles, not knowing what he said. 
There John was a silent observer, but now he speaks, but only 
when spoken to. We may imagine him suffocated with in- 
tense emotion. He cannot answer but returned the question, 
"Thou knowest." All else forgotten, now he is absorbed. The 
saints are praising, singing, shouting and weeping, and God is 
comforting them, spreading His tent over them in their jour- 
neyings, leading them to the fountains of the waters of life, 
wiping away their tears. Here is the total of heavenly powers 
in acclamations of victory. The saints, living and dead, in one 
company having all things in common, both which are in heaven 
and in earth, "for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos 
or Cephas or things present or things to come, all are yours, 
and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." The death line is 
effaced and we view the whole countless multitude of the re- 
deemed before God. The great advantage of His holding the 
two sides of this mighty conflict in line is most apparent. It 
simplifies the story to its last degree. When the representa- 
tive parts of these two powers are presented they are differ- 
entiated by a method at once the clearest and most wonderful. 
Here is a literary feat that challenges our admiration and ex- 



1^6 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

cites our wonder. These are the two great antagonistic forces 
at war but the parts as acted on their respective sides are clearly 
distinguished by their relations to their principals whose badges 
they wear. We can see them move as we would two armies and 
see their subordinates and can never mistake which side any 
actor is on. Between these armies there is a gulf fixed. The 
colors" that divide them are as opposite as black and white. 
In all his writings, in his gospel and in his letters and in this 
Revelation it is characteristic of John that he has no shadings 
in his characters. They stand out as where a shadow from 
the intense electrical light leaves a black, clear cut form, all 
light on one side and all deep darkness on the other. He 
never grades heavenly things down, to the earthly. He is most 
uncompromising. 

It is John who tells us that Satan was "a liar from the be- 
ginning/' and that he is a murderer, while Christ is altogether 
righteous and in Him is no unrighteousness, "no darkness at 
all." He it was who told us that Judas was a devil and a traitor, 
and he alone of all the prophets in the Bible told us Cain's 
motive for killing his brother. "And wherefore slew he him, 
because his works were evil and his brother's righteous." He 
says "the world knoweth us not because it knew Him not." 
It is this perfect divorce and the perfect antagonism between 
these forces that affords the highest degree of certainty to this 
interpretation when we descend to its .details. This perfect 
lack of shadings and gradations in John's chief characters every- 
where stands up to assist our exegesis. The effacement of per- 
sonalities or the retirement of them from direct recognition 
and the same subordination of places to a symbolical use added 
to the clear cut distinction between his characters are such fix- 
tures in his treatment as to establish our confidence in the re- 
sults. 

We are dealing with the principles and essences as they stand 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 1211 

related to each other in this world where sin strives against 
righteousness: and while we at first experience a feeling of loss 
from want of the uses of personalities and localities and chrono- 
logical dates we are in fact a thousand times compensated hy 
being compelled to see things in their larger, deeper and higher 
relations divested of the narrower, harder and more abitrary 
way in which we may have been accustomed to think upon 
spiritual things. We shall see them rise from their sources 
and flow onward to their consummation to the rapture of the 
glorious end. Such a view is a mightier armor against the 
wiles of the devil than we had yet fully known. 

Our fault has been that we are too fond of the superficially 
religious, like His first followers, looking for signs in the per- 
sonalities, localities and times instead of principles, essences 
and relations. After a long acquaintance with Him, Philip 
said, "Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us." Jesus said, 
"Philip, hast thou been so long a time with Me and hast not 
seen the Father? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.'' 

By an unfortunate division of chapters the seventh seal comes 
in the eighth chapter. Christ has finished His mystic min- 
istry, including His part iu this new Pentecost, and the apostle's 
part will follow as Trumpeters. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Four angels: Four horses; four creatures; tribes; tongues; 
peoples and nations; they that dwell on the earth, etc. 

Four winds: Human spirits; passions and interests of men. 

Earth, sea and trees: Earth, trees and green grass; grass, trees 
and living things (all God's heritage in the earth claimed as Christ's 
since his ascension). 

Children of Israel: The 144,000 sealed; the multitude no man 
could number; ten thousand times ten thousand; the saints, etc. 



128 MYSTERY OP THE COLDEN CLOTH; 



CHAPTER VII. 

Revelation VIII. 
THE SEVENTH SEAL.— THE APOSTLES AS TRUMPETERS. 

The last act of the Seal-opener comes here, far removed 
j'rom the preceding six. But it precedes the trumpets. As the 
events of the day of Pentecost, the sending down of the Holy 
Spirit, etc., must transpire before Christ had finished His min- 
istry, henceforth to be entrusted to earthen vessels, the apostles, 
and before He entered into His rest; so here we find the spirit- 
ual replication of that fact. Christ has finished His personal 
part by the opening of six seals, six days of labor. He now 
breaks the seventh seal, that is, after He has acted His part in 
this mystic Pentecost corresponding to that which He acted in 
His actual ministry that ended in the impartation of the spirit 
on the day of Pentecost at Jerusalem. 

And when he had opened the seventh seal there followed a si- 
lence in heaven about the space of half an hour. 

No works follow. It is the Sabbath of the new spiritual 
creation which He has completed and which He has told us 
about in the disclosure of the six great labor seals. Christ is 
done in His own single ministry and it is His millennium. We 
have seen His new mystic ascension and His Pentecost in which 
He sealed His servants on the forehead, and His new power 
over the enemy. For further intelligence we will have to look 
to His apostles who follow and speak with trumpets. 

THE TRUMPETERS. 

We shall now see that the trumpeters sustain relations to 
the Seals opener exactly analogous to those which the apostles 



5R, THE RIVEN VEIL. 129 

sustained to Christ in carrying out the Great Commission. In 
reading we are compelled to discern two lessons at once. Our 
training in the analytical schools of late centuries sets up a 
revolt in the mind on this method^ but thus only may we read 
this book written within and on the back. The substance and 
its shadow go together. They refuse to part. Toward what 
we know as substance^ that is, the Gospel facts, our minds gravi- 
tate and harden. But the facts must be subdued into shadow 
upon which we must read the greater, higher substance of the 
hereafter. This is a kind of extension of mental process at- 
tended with effort, but also with a blessing pronounced both at 
the opening and at the close of this book upon him that reads 
it through this veil. The Gospel of fact being familiar to the 
mind, concerning the first church, steals our attention from the 
second church of which he is telling us on its pattern. We 
must raise our vision to these new heights. Our religious im- 
pressions grown out of the great controversies of the past are 
too violent for the serene exile, and they stand in our way 
and obscure the higher and greater truth he seeks to impart. 
We have also looked too steadily and intensely upon the troubled 
wake behind us and not enough upon the peaceful things wdiich 
are before us and in which we are to bear an age-making part. 
We are now to read the trumpeters separate and apart from 
Christ, the Seal opener, as the apostles acted apart from Him 
after the day of Pentecost. Their earlier relations to Him 
are illustrated by His holding them in His right hand as stars 
and as letter carriers to the churches. ■ We shall presently see 
them as thunderers, and again as the angels of wrath. Xow 
as stars and as letter carriers and as thunderers they act one 
single and common part or function and are inseparable, but 
as trumpeters they act seven independent parts, and as they 
are now with Him in carrying out the new creation, their func- 
tions are six days' labor and then close with a seventh which 
9 



130 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

is the "kingdom come" or the Sabbath. Now we must note 
well the fact that as neither the apostles nor the Holy Spirit 
nor the Churches appeared by any sign in all the seals^ so in 
all the trumpets neither the Spirit nor the Churches nor even 
Christ appears^ except that He will appear in a manner which 
corresponds to His manifestations to His apostles after the day 
of Pentecost. Here is design of an assured order. 

This analogy sustains the fact of the ongoing of time by 
these Trumpets beyond a doubt^ and we have the time of the 
future covered on a pattern that conforms in detail to the 
past. That is^ the seals and trumpets each cover the whole 
of Eevelation time^ beginning with Christ's ministry and bring- 
ing up in the same great results, one line being viewed as 
Christ's work and the other being viewed as the work of the 
apostles. That is as King Nebuchadnezzar saw the triumph 
over the world accomplished as by Christ in His own person 
under the symbol of a stone cut out without hands, and as 
Daniel saw the same end reached as through the saints, so 
do the seals and* trumpets respectively represent these two 
facts, two phases of the same great fact, the prophet Daniel 
being explained as quoted by Christ on the Mount of Olives. 
In all these visions we mark the fact that the visions of the 
king's image and of Daniel's beasts and of John's Seals and 
trumpets, we have four times the unmistakable progress of on- 
going and of completed time. These divisions of time are 
most decided and lie at the base of the true interpretation. 
In addition to these facts, which the book compels us to so 
often observe, the changes themselves now within our knowl- 
edge must have resulted from the changed conditions of the 
world in fulfillment of Daniel's and Christ's foretelling. Their 
own part which the apostles bore in that Great Commission 
must now be noticed in detail. 

They received the Great Commission to "go into all the world 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 131 

and preach the Gospel to every creature," but they also received 
a countermand to '^tarry at Jerusalem till they should be en- 
dued with power from on high/'' While they tarried for the 
promised day of Pentecost, they held a prayer service in which 
Peter made an address and proposed that another apostle should 
be elected who should take the place from which Judas by 
transgression fell, and having set before them two, who had 
journeyed with them from the baptism of John, they set them 
before God in prayer that He would show which He had chosen. 
The choice fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the 
apostles according to Peter's rules of apostolic succession. 

The next part which the apostles bore was to preach and 
to be followed by great agitation and by persecutions, etc. 
Here it is told in mystery, that is, a future Pentecost in strange 
symbols is told on the pattern of the old, as it related to the 
apostles' part of it. 

And I saw the seven angels which stand before God and there 
was given to them seven trumpets (their commission). 

From this statement the account turns away to speak of a 
matter which seems to be entirely, unrelated to it. Why do the 
trumpeters not proceed at once to sound, as we should expect? 
They have received their trumpets. Why delay? Here an- 
other angel joins them and serves them, but he has not been 
given any trumpet, but a censer only, and he acts a different 
part and is not recognized as a trumpeter, but seems to be 
in the lead of their prayers and with them he performs a part 
which is prefatory to their several soundings. 

And another angel came and stood over the altar having a golden 
censer. 

And there was given unto him much incense that he should add 
it to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was 
before the throne. 



132 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Incense is the symbol for prayer^ and it is explained here 
just as he explained the stars and the candlesticks and the white 
linen and the sea^ these being of the few symbols which are 
interpreted to ns by the author. 

"And the smoke of the incense for the prayers of saints 
went np before God out of the angel's hand." 

The symbolism under which this prayer meeting is given 
is the service in the temple, a minister with incense at the 
altar, offering it up to God. This is clearly patterned on the 
election of Matthias. It is noticeable that this angel is active 
in the prayers, and even seems to lead, whereas we were ac- 
customed to suppose that Matthias was passive in his election. 
This angel serves all the rest. He offers up incense or pray- 
ers for "all the saints.'' All the saints were present on the 
day of his election; they were all gathered together in one 
place. 

And the smoke of the incense for the prayers of the saints went 
up before God out of the angel's hand. 

This addition of another member to the trumpeters in a 
prayer meeting and its preceding the soundings of the trum- 
pets, answer so completely to the election of Matthias as to 
remove all doubt. This angel is chosen before the trumpets 
sound. He acts a subordinate part, and yet his part precedes 
the sounding of the trumpets. This election of an added angel 
to the trumpeters is impersonal and mystic. We clearly sec 
in it the election of Matthias by his relations to the apostles 
and by his function, and as it is said that the incense went up 
before God, it would seem that the prayers were heard and 
answered. 

And the angel taketh the censer and filleth it with the fire of the 
altar and cast it upon the earth. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 133 

Casting fire upon tlie eartli is a symbol for preacliing, as we 
shall presently have instances to show, but we have no account 
that Matthias preached, though we might fairly infer that he 
did; but he certainly did not lead in it at that time. That is 
the part which Peter performed, for it was he who led in it 
and was the chief speaker, both at the election of Matthias 
and on the day of Pentecost. Here again we meet with the 
advantage of preserving functions and parts, without being 
cumbered with direct personalities. "We have seven Trumpets 
answering to the apostles — that is, by acting seven parts and 
their distinctions in these parts — by Avhich we can in some 
measure see the actors through the parts they acted. By means 
of this shadowgraph we can see both the election of Matthias 
to the apostleship and the part which Peter bore in his elec- 
tion, the prayers about Matthias and the preaching of Peter. 
But while their parts are reproduced in form in this new 
symbolism their personalities are only implied by their relative 
and co-ordinate acts. 

Now the use of' these forms is most apparent. If it is not 
simply telling over again the things of the past^ it is teach- 
ing us of the future on patterns of the past by a faithfulness 
that inspires awe and wonder and praise. Seeing Peter and 
Matthias act in one function, casting out fire, is not quite 
new, for we have seen all the apostles acting both as seven 
and as one and the same function in two instances, and pres- 
ently we shall see another even more remarkable incident of 
personality by the use of the shadowgraph. John himself acts 
a function for all the apostles in bearing the letters to all the 
churches. 

And there followed thunders and voices and lightnings and an 
earthquake. 

These are the symbols for preaching, as already said, but 



134 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

are to be noticed here not as the preaching which Peter did 
upon the occasion of adding Matthias to the apostleship, for 
that was agreed to peacefnlly, while the lightnings and earth- 
quakes are symbols for the deep effect and agitation which fol- 
lowed the preaching on Pentecost, so that the preaching on 
these two events are blended into one. It seems at first strange 
that Matthias and Peter, whose functions seem so wide apart, 
one being the leading apostle to whom Christ gave the keys, and 
the other a secondary or servant apostle, should stand so close 
together in this shadowgraph that their functional images 
blend. It does not look much like that primacy of Peter we 
have heard much about, but rather like Christ's own defini- 
tion of primacy that "he who would be greatest among you 
shall be servant of all." This prefatory part to the sounding of 
the trumpets being now ended, that part of the trumpets' 
mission will follow which corresponds to the parts which the 
apostles took in the carrying out of the Commission after the 
election of Matthias. 

And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared 
themselves to sound. 

The apostles at Pentecost were prepared to sound; that is, 
to preach. After this mystic prayer meeting and the election 
of another angel the trumpeters are prepared to sound, and 
here they begin, and the agitation follows as it did then. This 
completes all the parts that belong to that memorable day by 
the use of these symbolic forms so far as the parts go which 
w^ere borne respectively by Christ and His apostles. This kind 
of teaching rises above that found in the types of the Old 
Testament, though it is on the same principle. God said to 
Moses, "See thou make all things according to the pattern 
showed thee in the mount," and Moses proceeded to construct 
the tabernacle. This tabernacle, built upon the heavenly pat- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 135 

tern, served the author of the Hebrew letter to illustrate the 
Divine method of teaching. The tabernacle with its three 
apartments and appointments was "a shadow of good things to 
come." It is easy enough to trace objects of sight to their 
spiritual substance, but the method of the Revelation rises one 
step higher than that. It does not use visible objects as the 
tabernacle, but mental images of accepted truth, and raises 
upon these another spiritual edifice, which can be seen only 
by holding the pattern steadfast in mind and then by super- 
imposing upon this mental base the higher spiritual truth. 
Thus, "we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory 
of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory even as by the 
spirit of the Lord." If we fail to read heavenly things in 
this higher light, we but repeat in our higher Eevelation the 
failure which Israel made in the lower. They saw the taber- 
nacle, but not beyond it of what it imported of spiritual glory, 
"a shadow of good things to come." Beyond what it meant of 
rich harvests and full baskets, they cared entirely too little. 
May not the same be too true of spiritual Israel? May not the 
selfish scramble over mere forms and precedents and subtleties 
and the mingling too freely in brute force instead of heavenly 
love have taken away our desires to read these higher lessons 
in prophecy? 

An illustration of this method of higher teaching may assist 
our desire to see and to understand this book. I here offer it. 

A missionary in a distant land with a company of assistants 
sits down to talk of their future. His assistants say to him, 
"Tell us of our future; what shall we do hereafter?" He 
divides his forecast into seven parts and answers as follows: 

1. We shall pay our debts and invoice our effects and write 
our good resolutions. 

2. We shall raise the likeness of our great father to view 
and wreathe it with flowers. 



136 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

3. We shall go in company and shall scatter flowers upon 
the little mounds of earth. 

4. We shall declare our freedom from the oppressor and 
our independence. 

5. We shall offer first fruits of our harvest to God. 

6. We shall rejoice and send gifts to one another. 

7. We shall rest. 

This is mystery, but, thoughtfully considered, there can be 
seen the tracings of our American holidays. These at first are 
but dim allusions, like water marks in letter paper on which 
we write. They lie under the answer to the question, "What 
of our future in this missionary field?'' 

It must be first decided that he cannot be making any 
allusions to returning home, for he is there for life. What 
signifies this undercurrent? It will be noticed that the in- 
voicing of goods, and paying of debts, and writing of good 
resolutions are characteristics of our New Year day. The rais- 
ing up of our great father's likeness and wreathing it with 
flowers brings Washington's birthday to view. 

The carrying of flowers to decorate the little mounds is a 
form of expression which starts in the mind the thought of 
our Decoration Day, and, declaring our independence of the 
oppressor has the pivotal word in which we speak of Independ- 
ence Day, the glorious Fourth of July; and in the same sug- 
gestive or cryptic way the offering of the first sheaf to God, 
brings our Thanksgiving Day to view, and sending gifts one 
to another and rejoicing has the most decided flavor of Christ- 
raas, and our seventh is a strong suggestion of the holidays, 
when the schools close and most labor ceases and we rest. Taken 
altogether, the suggestion is irrefutable that our American 
holidays must have been playing some mystic part as a sub- 
stratum in his thought. 

These allusions are given in the signs and in the number 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 137 

and in the order of our holidays. As soon as it comes clearly 
to view that such was intended, it remains to be determined 
what kind of nse is to be made of it in finding the intended 
answer. There is but one way to take these allusions, and 
that is as a cryptogram, a pattern, whose value is already 
known, and to find the way from these to the higher unknown 
whose meaning is intended to be conveyed. The thought of 
the loved country, left forever behind, is a warm soil on which 
to sow seeds for hope in the future. It is a wondrous way to 
call our native land to mind through her holidays. It brings 
to view at once all that America means. 

The glory and endearments of America find their highest 
expression in her holidays. These are the days in which are 
gathered and from which radiate as from seven points of light 
all the happy recollections and endearments of home, and upon 
these he writes the higher lessons of their missionary endeavors 
in order to vitalize their labors. We begin on this answer to 
read our future in the light of the past: 

1. To pay our debts and write our good resolutions, etc., 
means that we are to pay our vows to God and to take account 
of our resources for doing His service, and, 

2. We are to lift up in our hearts the image of our Savior 
to behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and, 

3. That we are to do honor to those who gave their lives 
to these missions before us, not with flowers, but by faithfully 
carrying on their work, and, 

4. That we declare abroad our emancipation from sin and 
our freedom in Christ, and, 

5. That we shall bring our new converts and devote them 
to God, and, 

6. That we shall have a joyful convocation at the end of 
the year, a true Christmas^ and, 



138 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

7. That we shall have relaxation in meditation and private 
devotion, so we advance by spiritual algebra. 

Thus does He write the highest lessons of things to come 
on the highest things that are past. Creation^s seven days are 
the glory heights upon which seven seals are broken and seven 
glory trumpets are sounded and reverberate down th^ Christian 
ages. Thus, without dates, without personalities, and without 
places does Christ write in characters of living light the answer 
to their question, whose answer lies in their own power to do 
and to achieve in the hereafter. What these trumpets are about 
to tell us is not what the apostles did, as individuals, nor simply 
what their function would do, but what "should come to pass 
hereafter," considered in seven acts as trumpet blowings, as 
though they came from the apostles, yet in fact what will come 
from His servants, ourselves included, acting in their stead. 

The apostles began the work in person, but it was carried 
on by all the faithful after them. We are in their place, so 
that the results of the great struggle are for the future in our 
hands. That is, the story told already as having been carried 
forward to the end by Christ on the heavenly side as against 
the world powers, is now to be retold as where the apostles 
and their successors are engaged to accomplish the same end; 
and these two series are to be followed by a treatment in which 
the fortunes of the church and the Holy Spirit are principal 
subjects of discourse. 

THE TRUMPETS IN GROUPS. 

The Trumpets are divided into groups of four and three just 
as the Seals. The groups are separated by the flying of an angel 
midheaven, who does not belong to the trumpeters, pronounc- 
ing three woes upon them that dwell upon the earth, the 
worldly, who are to be judged under the second group. 

The first group ends with showing that the world powers 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 139 

had gained a positive victory over the heavenly, just as the first 
group of seals showed .that the heavenly powers had gained 
a negative victory over the worldly. Also just as the group 
of three Seals ended in a positive victory over the worldly, 
so does the group of three Trumpets shovv' the positive defeat 
of the worldly. The Seal's and Trumpet's accounts differ from 
each other as the two dreams of the king and of Daniel con- 
cerning the same end, for, whereas the king saw the world 
powers as a unit in the image of a colossal man, Daniel saw them 
in four diverse beasts. So also the king beheld till he saw 
a single stone cut out without hands, which struck the great 
image and destroyed it, brake it to pieces, and then become a 
great mountain to fill the earth, while Daniel sees the same 
done by the saints of the Most High and the time come 
when they possess the kingdom and sit on thrones and judg- 
ments given to them. 

In the Seals openings Christ presents the perfect fulfillment 
of the king's vision, preserving its unity and 'also its continu- 
ity to the end. Xow, the four Seals showed four horses to rep- 
resent the world powers, but they were not diverse as Daniel's 
beasts^ as lion and bear, etc., but were all horses as the king's 
image was in four parts, but all parts of a man colossal and 
dazzling. The same unit is seen in the four angels that stand 
upon the four corners of the earth, with which Christ has to 
deal. They are a quadrate in unity, all angels, engaged in 
the same business and at the same time. Xow, as Christ is 
shown coming in conflict with the world powers as in His 
single function, apart from all His associate powers, so do the 
apostles as trumpeters, exercising their functions apart from 
Him, exactly answer to the vision given to Daniel that the 
saints should overcome and possess the kingdom and reign. 

The Trumpets differ from the Seals again in that, while 
each seal deals with but one side of the contest, each of the 



140 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

trumpets shows something of both sides^ shows more of a hand- 
to-hand contest as where men commingle in battle. The sym- 
bols, therefore, that convey the lessons of the trumpets are 
more abstract and interfused, though when analyzed the re- 
spective colors are clearly to be seen above the battle. Except 
for the light we have from the vision of Daniel we should 
make our way with difficulty through these symbols, but with 
its assistance we feel we are moving on solid ground. 

In our first group of trumpets we miss the four horses and 
all brute symbols of every kind, but we meet with the mean- 
ing of them in changed dress. They are now represented by 
the people themselves as "the sea^^ out of which Daniel saw 
the beasts arise. They are how called "Them that dwell on 
the earth,^' and as "those men who have not the seal of God 
on the forehead." The judgments and victories of the trumpets 
are all against the people as people rather than against kings 
and rulers as in the Seals. 

THE FIRST TRUMPET. 

And the first sounded and there followed hail and fire mingled 
with blood, and they were cast upon the earth and the third part of 
the earth was burnt up and the third part of the trees was burnt 
up and all green grass was burnt up. 

Here are the symbols of conflict, and of disaster to "the 
earth, the trees and the living grass." Fire means the Word 
of God, considered more on its penal or judgment side, and as 
purifying in its mission. In John's teaching, to be often 
noticed, judgments appear as the reverse side of the Gospel. 
"He that believeth hath life and he that believeth not is judged 
already." In this way salvation and condemnation go side 
by side. Wherever the word of life is spoken it is "a savor 
of life unto life and of death unto death." This first trumpet 
presents the beginning of that prolonged struggle with the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 141 

world. It began by the apostles in their own persons to be 
carried on by the saints who succeed to their work. The same 
thought expressed in this first trumpet was expressed in the 
red horse, and the reason for the change of symbols is now 
apparent in the different points of view from which the same 
condition is taken, as seen in the two visions of the king and 
of Daniel. The white horse followed by the red is simpler, 
but the Gospel preached, followed or attended with blood is 
the same fact. Bearing witness for Christ carried with it 
persecution, death and exile. Here blood and fire mingled. 
It says they were cast upon the earth. The angel took the 
fire from the altar and cast it upon the earth to express the 
preaching. Now it is preaching and blood mingling with it — 
that is, contest, strife. 

The result of the apostles preaching is described as the earth 
and the third part of the trees and all living grass being 
burnt up. Christ has won all things to Himself by His death 
and ascension, and He claims them, so that the news from this 
trumpet is that things went ill with the heavenly side. Notice 
how well the signal three serves us here. The side that suffers 
is given in three words — ^^earth, trees and living grass," and it 
is "the third part" that is burnt up, and it is at pains to say 
"burnt up" three times. The word "burnt" means only de- 
stroyed, and as fire is a destroying element in nature, so did 
persecution waste the church. 

Thus the first trumpet, while showing the same confiict we 
saw between the white horse and the red horse, shows it by 
symbols that indicate the immediate contest of the preacher 
with the people. As these Trumpets show the succession of 
ongoing time, this first one marks the times that followed 
the apostles^ preaching. This, the first general result of the 
irrepressible conflict, is disastrous to the cause of Christ. So 
indeed it was. 



142 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 



THE SECOND TRUMPET. 

And the second angel sounded and, as it were, a great mountain 
burning with fire was cast into the sea. 

Mountain means empire, government or world power. Sea 
means the people in mass. There can be but one world power 
in the view of this Trumpet and that the Eoman, the fourth 
universal monarchy, and the only one which Christianity had 
directly to deal with. It w^as Eome in its pagan form that put 
Christ to death and trod His church under foot. This is the 
mountain that was set on fire by the word of God and that 
blazed from its base to its summit and toppled over into the 
sea and sank beneath its angry billows. This is a limited and 
a kind of negative victory. Christ is called a mountain that 
was to fill the earth after He had struck and crushed the image. 
Out of the sea Daniel saw his four beasts come forth — that is, 
from among the consenting sinful people — and it is into the 
sea that John here sees the pagan Eoman government, which 
then held universal dominion on the earth, go down. The 
mountain stands above the sea and looks down upon it. The 
agitation of human passions casts up the debris that makes 
ruling monarchs or mountains to stand over them. The results 
of the going down of pagan Eome are given as follov/s: 

And the third part of the sea became blood and there died the 
third part of the creatures that were in the sea, even they that 
had life; afad the third part of the ships was destroyed. 

The disasters still fall heavy on the signal "three.'' The 
"third part" occurs three times, and "a third part" of three 
things were hurt — the sea, the creatures and the ships. They 
were hurt in three ways — by blood, by death and by being 
destroyed — and as exactly following the sense of the first trum- 
pet, which says "all green grass was destroyed," it says a part 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 143 

of those killed in the sea were "even those that had life/*' 
meaning a life above other creatures. 

John's rise of the word life is suggestive and special: "In 
Him was life and the life was the light of men." "My flesh 
I give for the life of the world." "The words I speak imto 
you are spirit and life." "I am come that they might have 
life and might have it more abundantly, etc." The saints, 
called "green grass/' perish on the earth, and in the sea they 
are the creatures "that have life." In all these symbols the 
earth, the trees, the grass, the tenantry of the waters and the 
ships all symbolize the proper inheritance of Christ by pur- 
chase and by faith, "but we see not yet all things put under 
Him," but even in these symbols in which we see the injury 
done to the world and to society in general a special symbol 
is kept to distinguish the saints, "green" or "living grass," and 
creatures that have "life" in the sea. These are never lost 
sight of. 

A great battle has been fought between His servants and 
the enemy, and, while it has acted with such disaster on the 
heavenly side, it has also effected the removing of a great moun- 
tain. The disciples have overturned a mountain, but, like 
Samson, have themselves fallen under it. The effect of their 
Gospel reacted on their persons and they were at first perse- 
cuted and in long eras of peace became corrupted. The sea 
into which the mountain went down boils with the moral 
chemicals which it carried down till it was filled and corrupted 
with the carcasses that died by reason of its dissolution. The 
dead frogs that filled the river of Egypt to punish the wicked 
world power that oppressed Israel is feeble in comparison with 
this great sea of universal putrefaction. What can ever again 
rise out of such a sea? N'o ordinary power surely. Daniel 
told us of a nameless monster — the fourtli beast — and Jr)hn 
will presently tell us more minutely of the same brute. But the 



144 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Trumpets turn for one blast toward the East, which also had 
a subordinate attention in the vision of Daniel. 

THE THIRD TRUMPET. 

And the third angel sounded and there fell from heaven a great 
star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon a third part of the rivers 
and upon the fountains of waters, and the name of that star is 
called wormwood, and the third part of the waters became worm- 
wood, and many men died of the waters because they were made 
bitter. 

The rivers are in the East as ^the sea is in the West. The 
old eastern world fell under the Mohammedan power and fol- 
lowed in point of time the fall of the Western Pagan Empire. 
As the human family rose in the East, and as water is the 
general symbol for the people, the rivers and fountains of 
waters refer to the East. The symbols and relations in this 
Trumpet refer us to Mohammed. This is a fallen star and 
he is called "wormwood/' which suits the ofhce he still holds, 
as witness the present Armenian troubles. He falls upon the 
fountains of waters, a persecuting power upon the Christians 
of the East, who suffer the same tribulation with all the chil- 
dren of God. This star is fallen from heaven, not from having 
been in glory, but as apostate and as a star fallen below his 
pretensions, not from sipiritual holiness, but as a star that leaves 
its constellation and its glory and sinks in a hissing, sulphurous 
smoke down to blackness on the earth, so this one is descended 
from the profession of religion to depravity and is bitter and it 
embitters the life of humanity. "A third part of the waters 
become wormwood and many men died of the waters because 
they were made bitter." 

This trumpet differs from the others in three points. It lacks 
the greater generality of character, being more local as the 
"rivers and fountains of waters." It does not take quite the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 145 

same care of signal numbers, and it simply says that "many 
men died of the waters"" ^vithom intimating their character 
as the ''living grass"' or "the creattires that have life" or as 
^"'sealed on their foreheads/*'* etc. 

This star is said to burn like a torch, better read lamp — 
that is, makes a pretense to religion. Such is the religion of that 
bitter star of Fsan. his hand against every man. God has an 
interest in those men upon whom bitter Islam continues to 
inflict wormwood. This trumpet is clearly a gain to the enemy 
and against the righteous. The succession of these trumpets 
is the succession of history in its great epochs: The persecu- 
tion of the church, the downfall of Eome and the rise of 
Mohammedanism. This is history, rather forevieWj written in 
the isle of Patmos. The line of prophecy, both in the Old 
Testament and the Xew. follows the people of God and takes 
no account of any nations except those with whom they come 
in contact. 

THE FOURTH TRUMPET. 

The first group of seals ended in the death of the world 
powers and the first group of trumpets ends in the eclipse and 
extinguishment of the heavenly. The sun. moon and stars grow 
dim, and for a time go entirely out, and total darkness reigns. 

And the fourth angel sounded and the third part of the sun was 
smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the 
stars, that the third part of them should be darkened and the day 
should not shine for a third part of it, and the night in like manner. 

The whole weight of this trtimpet falls tipon the chtirch 
or the heavenly powers. Everything that suffers in the fotirth 
trumpet is heavenly, just as everything that suffered in the 
fourth seal is earthly. The story is thus told on both sides, 
the world powers dead on the one side and the heavenlv eclipsed 
10 



146 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

on the other. The two groups bring to a donble climax of 
disaster. The first brings triumph^ as where Christ in His 
own office overcomes the world powers, and the second defeat, 
as where the world has overcome His saints. 

Notice how the fonrth seal and the fourth trumpet are 
arrayed against each other in the signals used. The fourth 
seal is a pale horse — that is, a dead horse — and he is mounted 
by "Death" and followed by Hades, which make up the pro- 
cession. He is the fourth horse and has power over a fourth 
part of the earth to kill in four ways — "by the sword, by famine, 
by pestilence and by wild beasts." 

Thus, while in the fourth seal are mingled the symbols of 
brutishness and of perdition and they are overthrown, so in 
the fourth trumpet, where w^e have the defeat and overthrow 
of the heavenly cause in the hands of His servants, all is rep- 
resented in heavenly symbols: the sun, moon, stars — three — 
and they are smitten a third part. And the "third part" 
occurs three times, and for a "third" part of the time they 
should not shine at all. Thus the symbol three is associated 
as closely with these heavenly bodies as four is with the earthly. 
These antagonistic symbols find their climax at the close of 
the two groups of the four seals and of the four trumpets, one 
giving the result of the great contest upon the evil powers 
of brute rule and the other the result upon the heavenly 
powers of divine rule. The first and great battle is ended. 
Both sides seem defeated. Herein is the promise of a revival. 
The second battle will be fought on greatly changed condi- 
tions most favorable to the last three trumpets, which are 
heavenly victories. The death of the heavenly powers is only 
an eclipse. Heavenly things will not remain in grave clothes 
nor in sack-cloth, nor in darkness. A resurrection is as sure 
to follow as that the Master Himself arose from the dead. 

The darkening, spoken of in this fourth trumpet, is grad- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 147 

ual, for the sun, moon and stars are darkened "a third part" 
and then for "a third part'' of the time they are a total eclipse. 
All these words of time are to be taken always in the Kevela- 
tion sense. The third part has no chronological measure at all, 
it being used for its symbol value, showing the suffering to be 
on the heavenly side. But the time of total darkness is the 
time we know by the name of the Dark Ages. AYe may find 
trouble in fixing any very definite time for its beginning or for 
its end, as every sign here shoAvs a gradual change. There is a 
very dark place in our history following the overthrow of pagan 
Rome and the rise of Mohammedanism, a darkness that put out 
all the heavenly lights, and even ihe lower lights of human 
learning. 

The heavenly powers and the brute powers are both down. 
It is a draAvn battle. Another day is to dawn, but it must dawn 
upon a sea of putrefaction. Out of that sea will arise another 
beast, a monster and a wonder having all the characteristics 
of pagan brutality and all the forms and professions of Chris- 
tianity, the elements of the deadliest conflict this world ever 
saw devilishly combined. Between the two groups of Trumpets 
is the incoming of an angel to announce the second group of 
trumpets and to tell us their meaning and purpose. 

And I saw and I heard an angel flying in mid-heaven, saying, 
with a great voice. Woe! Woe! Woe! for them that dwell on the 
earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three 
angels who are yet to sound. 

This verse would better belong to the ninth chapter, where 
the woe trumpets begin. Using the revised, which in so many 
instances is an improvement on the common version, we refrain 
from criticism except where the error seriously impairs the 
sense and where the method and construction of the book make 
it necessary to correct it. 



148 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Onr revisers have preferred "eagle" to "angel" in the Common 
Version. They were probably justified in doing so on the 
comparative merit of discordant manuscripts and having no 
well-grounded interpretation to assist them. But "eagle" is 
such a manifest violation of the sense as to be impossible. It 
is impossible that an eagle^ which is a world creature in every 
use in this book, should be pronouncing woes upon his own 
family and kind, and especially at this point in the story. It 
might have appeared in the first group of the Seals, as it does 
in fact, where it lends its wings to the fallen absconding woman 
to be presently seen, but it cannot preface these three heavenly 
trumpets that pronounce woes upon "them that dwell on the 
earth." This is as far amiss almost as the common version 
which makes St. John say, "And I stood upon the sand of the 
sea," thus making him stand in the place of the dragon called 
the Devil and Satan. So much we owe to the help of the 
construction of the work. It must be noticed that all the major 
series, the letters, seals, trumpets, etc., are divided into groups 
of four and three by a special divine manifestation coming 
between them. This angel is attending the trumpets as Christ 
attended His apostles, visiting judgment upon the world. An 
eagle could not abet any of these good offices in the very nature 
of the story; and this is mentioned to show how well the struc- 
ture and genius of the book is able to protect us from error 
and confusion. 

Errors of this kind have had their influence in adding to 
the popular notion that the Eevelation is but an incoherent 
dream instead of the masterpiece of all great literature, there 
being no other given to man Avherein so great and so valuable 
intelligence is conveyed in so short a space. It is grandly 
protected against the vandals of atheism and the agnosticism 
of its friends. 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 149 



SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Mountain: Government; king; ruler; kingdom; horns; heads; 
peoples; multitudes; nations; tongues; many waters. 

Fire: Word of God in judgments; two-edged sword; sharp 
sickle; Holy Spirit; bowls of wrath; woes upon the wicked; wine- 
press of God's wrath, etc. 



150 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

Revelation IX, 1-11. 

THE FIFTH TRUMPET.— THE GREAT PANTOMIME.— A DIA- 
BOLICAL PENTECOST. 

As the fifth Seal carried us beyond the world signs (the four 
horses and horsemen upon the earth) to the spiritual world 
beyond and showed the waiting souls beneath the altar who 
had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony of 
Jesus, so in the fifth Trumpet we are prepared to see opened 
on the other side the infernal world, what the adversary and 
his followers are doing in this dark period. 

These powers proceed from opposing worlds, but their field 
of conflict is in this. In the one we see the martyred saints 
in the safe keeping of Christ, and in the other, the wicked 
coming out of the pit under their leader's orders. The w^orld 
powers here come to view under very changed aspects. The 
change is very great since we first met them, showing they 
have greatly altered since that burning mountain of paganism 
sank and quenched its lurid flames in the troubled sea. Daniel 
saw a nameless monster arise from the sea, diverse from all 
beasts, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, having 
great iron teeth and ten horns and nails of brass. This beast 
"devoured and brake in pieces and stamped the residue with 
its feet." It was with this beast that he was told the saints 
were to have their long and final struggle and which they were 
to "overcome and to destroy to the end.'' 

The fifth Trumpet brings us well forward to this time. It 
is later than the going down of Eome. It is the first of the 
three trumpets that sound the victories of the heavenly power 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 151 

and the downfall of the worldly by three woes from heaven. 
The new beast which is to arise out of the sea of decayed 
paganism and the cinders of Christianity must be a hybrid, 
a mongrel, beast in fact, and a Christian only in form and pro- 
fession. 

This Trumpet presents all the characteristics of a mock 
Pentecost. It shows the nse of religious symbols and forms 
in an infernal combination. A star (a leader) is fallen called 
"the Angel of the Abyss/' and "King of the Locusts.'' He 
is given a key to open a kingdom and to let go a swarm of 
destroying locusts of the most appalling and contradictory at- 
tributes. They come forth as from a great mock incense, the 
smoke as from a great furnace from "the pit of the abyss." 
To come up out of the earth or out of the sea is the same 
source, except the earth represents the abiding place of man 
and the sea the mobility and agitation of human society. 

The fifth Trumpet presents a parody and a mock of the true 
Pentecost and is to be noticed as the first striking appearance 
of that great counterplot in which Satan appears as an angel 
of light. This counterplot henceforth becomes the center about 
which all the evil elements gather simulating the heavenly plan 
of Salvation. We have henceforth to face a new power or a 
new manifestation of the old one. This trumpet is a woe 
k) "them that dwell on the earth." 

The elements of evil that were troubling the seven churches 
in John's day have come into the ascendant. At Ephesus 
there were some who claimed to be apostles and were proven 
to be liars; and there were Balaamites and Jezebelites who 
then crept into the churches and afterward crept upon the 
throne made vacant by the Caesars, Satan's seat; and this trum- 
pet gives them an opening to show us their origin and their 
mission in contrast with, and in mockery of, the beginning of 
the church of Christ on that great day of the Lord. This is 



152 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

an open show of the great day of Satan's reign on earth in 
that dark time. With this we henceforth principally deal, 
and not, as hitherto, with Herod and Pontius Pilate and the 
Gentiles and the children of Israel, as Christ in person con- 
fronted them, bnt in the guise of heavenly power Satan trans- 
formed into an angel of light, antichrist, to deceive the whole 
world. 

THE GREAT PARODY AND COUNTERPART. 

Henceforth our interpretation is greatly assisted by a new 
system of safeguards to our procedure. 

The world powers which Christ puts to death in the sym- 
bolism of a great crucifixion here confront Him, transformed 
as an angel of light in the symbols of a Pentecost or a great 
opening day. Satan is given a mock Pentecost. He does not 
now openly oppose, as at the first, in pagan conflict, but dis- 
sembles in the signs and symbols of true religion. By this 
method of presenting the subject we have, in addition to the 
shadowgraph lying under the story, also a parallelograph lying 
beside it of counteracting pretensions, a marvel of demonstra- 
tion. Not only may we follow the story as by a pattern as we 
can trace the stars of heaven on the clear face of the water, 
but we may now pass from one to the other by direct com- 
parison and contrast. Do those rich in literature know the 
equal of it? It is reasonable to suppose that God in giving 
to His servants a Eevelation so extraordinary in manner and 
matter would also furnish with it proper safeguards to its sure 
interpretation equally extraordinary. I reverently affirm He 
has done so. It is far easier to suppose our own bias or our 
false education or our carnal-mindedness prevent us from read- 
ing this book than that it should be a jumble of incoherent 
dreams or a forever sealed and forbidden message. It begins 
with the command of God to reveal and show to His servants, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 153 

and ends with His command not to seal up the book; and 
now, since its detractors of every kind continue to abuse or 
slight it^ might they not as well put out a book on "The Mis- 
takes of St. John^' as a companion piece to the "Mistakes of 
Moses?" The same class of readers might enjoy them both as 
Pentecostal emanations from below. 

THE DIABOLICAL PENTECOST. 

The Christian dispensation proper was opened by the greai 
day of the Lord, a mighty Pentecost, where Christ met His 
people and qualified His apostles and conAdcted the world by 
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and saved three thousand 
souls, the first fruits of divine grace. Toward that Pentecost 
all things tended from the baptism of John. Upon it all things 
depended, and from it all things proceeded, and back to it all 
that followed looked as "the beginning." 

"The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was noi 
yet glorified.'' The ministry of love through the apostles dele- 
gated to all nations was in suspense till its power was bestowed. 
On Pentecost, Peter, to whom Christ had said, "I give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom," having received the Holy 
Spirit, opened the kingdom by announcing for the first time 
in public the resurrection, ascension, and coronation of Christ. 
Upon this glorious Pentecost Christ met His enemy in a new 
role and won a victory. 

The fifth Trumpet brings to view the counterfeit and bur- 
lesque of all this by an opening from below of the kingdom 
of beast power now performing Christian pretenses. 

And the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star from heaven fallen 
to the earth. 

This fallen star is also called the angel of the abyss, verse 11. 
He is called the angel that cometh up out of the abyss, xi, 7. 



154 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Fallen from heaven and risen out of the abyss are not words 
of place or locality, but conditions of which these are symbols. 
This angel is a star fallen apostate, and he is fallen not to the 
earth merely, but to the abyss, and there he has a key, etc. 
He is also here called the king of the locusts. It is not incon- 
sistent in this usage to say that he is a star fallen and is in 
the pit, and on the earth, and in the wilderness, nor that he 
is at once a star and an angel, and a king, and a servant receiv- 
ing a key, and a beast and a destroyer, for these only describe 
his diiferent dispositions and offices. 

Onr difficnlty at the first in regard to symbols rises from 
onr inability to rapidly put together signs which we are so 
accustomed to regard as wholly inconsistent as places and per- 
sons and to allow the symbol to flash the thought of quality 
and relation only. Facility in doing so is not hard to acquire 
and is the life and glory of meditation — a delight to the heart 
ever rising, widening and deepening into infinite perspectives 
into the spiritual with no dregs of association, with the limits 
of place, etc. We are so prone to propping our minds with 
mere externals of places and personalities that we lag and 
trudge when we should walk these mountain tops, stepping 
from peak to peak in the highway where the redeemed shall 
walk. We move on wings in this altitude. He who cannot lift 
his feet for one moment from the earth cannot walk or run 
in this way. 

There was given unto him the key of the pit of the abyss. 

The pit of the abyss calls to mind imagery which needs no 
criticism on the literal meaning of words. The smoke that 
accompanies these creatures speaks plainer than words of the 
nature of this place from which they proceed. It is from a 
source the full opposite of the heavenly. It is a perfect antith- 
esis. This fallen star is given a key. He holds a subordi- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 155 

nate place and is delegated to open this great pit of infernal 
power. AYe have three notable stars spoken of in this book: 
Christ is the ascending star, bearing the seal of the living 
God and He says, "I am the bright and the morning star." 
But Mohammed is a fallen star to the earth, a bitter wormwood 
upon the fountains of waters, bnt this is another fallen star, 
fallen to the abyss called Abaddon, Apollyon the destroyer, and 
he destroys with a swarm of devouring locusts. These three 
stars represent the three religions of heaven and of earth and 
of hell. 

And he opened the pit of the abyss and there went up a smoke 
out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and 
air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 

He performs the function of an apostle, even like Peter, 
to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Satan 
opens his Pentecost with darkening incense, which is as the 
smoke, not from a golden altar by a golden censer, but as from 
a great furnace from the pit of the abyss whence he comes. 
The Holy Spirit which came down on Pentecost in answer to 
Christ's promise and the prayers of the saints enlightened 
the apostles and through them all who sincerely heard them; 
but these new apostles of the pit need darkness for their 
work because their deeds are evil, and a great smoke comes 
up with them that darkens the sun and the air. The earth 
must grope in darkness, for this blackening incense puts out 
the lights of heaven. 

And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth and 
power was given unto them as the power of scorpions. 

VThdi an antithesis is this! The apostles of Christ were 
given heavenly power to bless and to heal, but these to sting 
and to punish. Christ's apostles went forth from a heavenly 



156 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDeN CLOTH; 

baptism of the Holy Spirit to save, but these go forth from 
a baptism in the stinking darkening smoke from the furnace 
of the pit of the abyss to destroy. Christ's apostles acted in 
a character and power given to them from above, but these 
locusts have the power of scorpions given them from below to 
hurt men five months — that is about the natural life of the, 
locust, and this answers well to that darkest period, that ebony 
night, in which all the constellations went out together with 
the sun and the moon for a third part.* 

And it was said unto them that they should not hurt the grass 
of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only such 
men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads. 

Here are set in full antithesis and contrast as though we 
might otherwise make a mistake, those "who have the seal 
of God on their forehead'' and those who have not, which are 
"they that dwell upon' the eaj-th" the unenlightened, unsealed 
and unsaved. The locusts could not hurt any green thing, as 
grass or trees or living thing. These are already shown 
(vii, 1-3) as the symbols for the things that are of the heavenly 
inheritance, the assured interests of the saints and of God. 
The ignorant and unsaved alone, the locusts, may devour and 
poison. The saints enjoy spiritual immunity by the enlighten- 
ing of the Holy Spirit through the knowledge of the truth. 
Here it is again implied that rising power of Christ seen in 
His ascension, in the mystic Pentecost in which He calls a 
halt upon the world powers "till we seal the servants of God on 
their foreheads." 

Thus we meet again the sealed servants which the locusts 
cannot hurt; and the sealing bears special allusion to dangers 
arising from rival claimants for their loyalty. "It was said 
unto them that they should not hurt the flora, or the foliage, 

*See Time Element at close of book. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 157 

or any living thing — that is, spiritually living — but only the 
dead and dry, the ignorant and vicious; and this prohibition 
would at first seem to come from their own king, but it did 
not. It means that they could not hurt, for now the great 
revival has come. The morning star is rising in the East. He 
is sealing His servants on their foreheads. He has overthrown 
the pagan brute powers and is now preparing to overthrow 
this new brute of awful aspect and he has gotten a new hold 
in the earth and is able to seal His servants so that the deceiver 
cannot hurt them. Those sealed in the mystic Pentecost as 
having been rescued from sin are here shown to be protected 
from the emissaries from below. 

An intelligent understanding of Christ and the indwelling 
of the Holy Spirit in the heart are the limit and inhibition 
upon all the low stealth and cunning of the devil and his 
apostles and his agents. The walls of salvation are beauty 
within and defense without. When God dwells in the heart 
by His spirit Satan cannot enter, for "ye are the temple of 
God.'' These locusts are confined entirely to dead and dry 
diet, the ignorant who do not discern the true from the false, 
but the destroyers are limited even here, for they may not kill 
those whom they oppress. This limit comes from another 
source. It is the limit of their own interest and selfishness. 
The wicked do not destroy their own property. 

And it was given tc them that they should not kill them, but 
that they should torment them five months. 

It was permitted them. The owner does not kill his slaves. 
They are goods and merchantable. The greed of the master 
is a shield against their murder, however much he may oppress 
them — such is the case with the locusts. They have a season, 
a limit of time in which they are regnant, and they have also 
a limit of selfishness which is a limit upon their taking away 



158 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the lives of their victims, though they are woefully oppressed. 
The gloomy extent of that oppression is expressed in the next 
verse. 

And in those days men shall seek death and shall in nowise find 
it, and they shall desire to die and death fleeth from them. 

It will be noticed how the active and passive forms of speech 
are used in this Trumpet. Death is spoken of as fleeing away 
and the locusts are represented as being commanded to not 
do what it means they cannot do, and that they were com- 
manded not to kill when it was their own lust that restrained 
them from killing, and now death is represented as fl.,ang 
away from those oppressed when they seek its mercies. The 
oppression is great upon poor mortals when driven to seels 
death for a refuge from the oppressor. There is some deep 
occult meaning to the saying that they cannot find death aiiA 
that it flees away from them when they seek its shelter from 
greater ills; "a naked bodkin" will not in their case "put 
an end." 

Their king and oppressor claims all power in heaven from 
which faithful John tells us he is a fallen angel. He claims 
the earth also upon which he has sent his servants to destroy, 
and he claims to have power even over the pit of the abyss, of 
which he also claims to have the key and to have the power 
to open and to shut at will. It is this dark pit which the 
locusts of the fallen angel hold up to the minds of his victims 
that deters them from its darkening portals to suffer on and 
endure the oppressor. They prefer and they seek for that peace 
of death "where the wicked cease to trouble and the weary are 
at rest." But with scorpion stings on one side and purgatorial 
fires on the other they prefer to "endure the ills they have 
than to fly to those they know not of." 

Suicide is the desperate resort for those who cannot endure 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 159 

the ills of such a life^ but, being victims of these poisoning 
locusts, they are denied a burial in consecrated ground with all 
that is implied within their law. This is why they cannot find 
death. This is the way death flees from them. We have to 
remember that this trumpet is giving us an inside view of 
things on the infernal side, of the destroyer and of his angels, 
just as the fifth seal gave us an inside view of the things of 
the heavenly side as between the Lord and the souls of them 
that cried to Him from the altar. They had gone out from 
the heavenly Pentecost and had fallen, giving their lives for 
their Master; but these come out of the pit and they torment 
their victims and cause them to endure their torment by open- 
ing to their deluded and poisoned minds the purgatorial fires 
beyond in order to restrain suicide and to cause them to endure 
oppression for gain. Let any one even to this day see the 
comparative infrequency of suicides in papal countries. 

This is that beast power which caused the astounded Daniel 
to implore of the angel of G6d to tell him what it meant. 
Its minions are able to restrain their chattels from the gates 
of suicide by denying them the right to a burial in "holy 
earth,^' consecrated to fraud and deception. 

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for 
war. 

They have military power to enforce submission. Here is 
the old beast power trying to force a religion into its wicked 
service whose nature is voluntary and free and pure and whose 
author said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
you free indeed.^^ 

And upon their heads, as it were, crowns like unto gold. 

Ah, but the Elders around the throne had the genuine; 
their crowns were gold, while these are only like unto imita- 



160 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tions. Tliey have no genuine thing about them. They 
do the work of their king and his name is the Destroyer. 

And their faces were as men's faces and they had hair as the 
hair of women and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 

What a perfect farago of symbols are employed here to de- 
scribe the character of these apostles of the pit. Faces like 
men^ looks like they are of the masculine gender^ but hair 
like women just as strongly suggests they are feminine; and 
as they cannot be both, perhaps they are playing a part that 
cannot be assigned to either sex, and, as they have power, 
perhaps they are those who forbid marriage and themselves are 
playing a kind of neuter gender — false sanctity. We are read- 
ing on the inside of things infernal. It is an internal view, 
where we are to see the principles and doctrines from which 
these actions spring, and in this picture is plainly written 
"celibacy" — forbidding to marry. Hair like women is an 
effeminite look, and faces like men is masculine, and when they 
open their mouths you can see lion^s teeth. Here is the 
lying pretense of purity by rakes who deny to marriage that 
■sacred character which God gave it at the beginning, and 
which is the foundation of the family, a favorite symbol in the 
Bible for describing heaven and happiness. These pretenders 
to sanctity by a false celibacy, these serpentine poisoners gen- 
eral, that proceed from the pit of the abyss^ from whose lion's 
teeth we might well guard our school funds and every office of 
trust, are painted here by the spirit of inspiration that all may 
see their true character and mission. This inside view to the 
infernals has shown three remarkable things: 

1. The poisoning process as from the sting of the scorpion 
which refers to the mind and bears close reference to that fraud 
where the locust sends away his victims poisoned with the delu- 
sions of the confessional. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. l61 

2. Purgatory^ over whose empire the fallen star claims do- 
minion and by which he coerces his victim to endure a woe 
worse than death, and, 

3. Celibacy, the climax of hypocrisy and the guise under 
which are lion's teeth for devouring whatever has not the 
seal of God upon it, or the intelligent apprehension of God's 
law to protect it. 

This Trumpet deals with new conditions. This new present 
world of ours began upon the ruins of a fallen empire and 
a fallen church. We must notice that the rising power which 
Christ is shown to have gained over the world in the sixth 
seal, so that He could restrain it for the sealing of the saints 
on their foreheads, is in this Trumpet shown to be power 
which is exercised through His servants. The Trumpets deal 
Vvdth the rise of heavenly power as though it came through 
the apostles, or, in fact, through His saints, valuable for all to 
know who expect Christ is to bring about these great results by 
His own personal brightness of appearing rather than through 
His Holy Spirit and the divine life of His serA^ants 

The mighty power of Christ to restrain the world and to 
overcome it which is so plainly told of this second church 
and second Pentecost is power which is exercised by His saints, 
through whose efforts Pie is to overcome. So, too, we find it 
on the other side. Satan accomplishes through his servants^ 
the locusts, his work on the ignorant, and they are limited by 
their own lusts, of which he is the father, from killing their 
victims. They fetter their minds by their lying pretenses of 
powers they do not possess and cannot exercise. This fact 
entirely relieves the mind from the inclination to regard these 
achievements as proceeding immediately from the two antag- 
onistic sources by spectacular demonstrations, but as coming 
through human agencies. It is a w^ar of minds, a battle of 
11 



162 MYSTERY OF THE aOLDEN CLOTM; 

spirits on the field of time, of darkness against light, of Christ 
against Satan. 

Both in the relations which these parts snstain to each other 
and by the v/orks in which they are engaged in carrying ont, 
the recognition of Imman agency is employed and the rela- 
tions of their followers to their respective leaders is very close. 
What a travesty on heavenly love and Christian brotherhood 
is disclosed in this diabolical proselytism from below\ 

And they had breastplates, as it were, breastplates of iron, and 
the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many 
horses rushing to war. And they have tails like unto scorpions, 
and stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men five 
months. They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His 
name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue he hath the 
name Apolyon. ' 

The star fallen from heaven is called the '^angel of the abyss" 
and "king of the locusts" and is further identified by two 
words wdiich point to the source of his power — "Abaddon and 
Apollyon." The origin is from the abyss, and the agents come 
as devouring locusts dressed in military array, and their move- 
ments are like chariots and horses rushing to battle. It was 
this attempt of brute power upon the early Christians that re- 
sulted in their being hissed and stoned out of the world, their 
souls crying henceforth, for a little time, from beneath the 
altar. The two great opposing forces are disclosed to us as 
beginning with two opposing Pentecosts. On one side heavenly 
love, peace and good-will inspiring the servants of God to lay 
down even their lives for the truth they spoke, and on the 
other, the servants of the destroyer, as locusts come out of the 
pit of the abyss, and, having stings like serpents, they are 
clad in military dress with war powers and looking like great 
centaurs of destruction. They are vipers wearing crowns, ser- 
pent at the tail and woman at the head, horse in body and man 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 163 

in face, devouring with lion's teetli and stinging with scorpion 
tails. What an infernal medley of parts — insect, brute, demon 
and human — such only as might rise from the dregs of a sea of 
blood and carcasses where decayed worlds of idolatry sank to 
rise again, a ghastly caricature of the religion of Jesus Christ, 
with every propensity of brute, insect, serpent, devil and man 
combined! Henceforth the struggle is between these two 
powers, and the battle takes on new aspects. They face in battle 
and they look in different directions. They stand in their 
own orders as climax and anti-climax. We meet the enemy 
as we advance. Christ's kingdom increases and the kingdom 
of the pit must decline. The currents meet and flow in oppo- 
site directions. In this time, which is the revival or the great 
Eeformation, we meet the Pentecost of satanic darkness brought 
to view by the fifth trumpet, which is the first of the three 
woes against "them that dwell upon the earth." 

To one unaccustomed to this method of teaching the question 
arises. When was this Diabolical Pentecost? It has no date, but 
reveals a condition. It is that dark period when the sun, 
moon and stars were entirely obscured, and the darkness is 
ascribed in this trumpet to the devil as coming from the pit 
and darkening the sun and the air. It was the reign of black 
horrors that was also shown in the black horse — The Dark Ages. 
This trumpet ascribes an imitation Pentecost as showing its 
real character. 

The fifth is one of the three heavenly Trumpets. It lets in 
the light upon the state of the world as it was when the 
morning star of the Eeformation arose upon it. That Pente- 
cost looks backward in time just as the heavenly Pentecost looks 
forward. It is said later that "the beast knoweth that he hath 
but a short time." The titles and descriptions of the beast are 
varied to suit his different functions and relations just as 
Christ's are. As to heaven, the beast is a fallen star; as regards 



164 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the "pit of the abyss/^ he is the angel and porter to open and 
shut; as regards the earth, he is Abaddon, the destroyer; as 
to the locusts, he is their king and director; as to this great 
false religion, he gives it all authority and power^ and we 
presently find that as to the two witnesses, he is their mur- 
derer; and as to God and the saints, their loud maligner. So 
that acts which we have thought to regard as personal are char- 
acterizations of the acts of satanic power in which all his 
servants are engaged. 

These locusts act a great variety of parts, all satanic. This 
strife of the conflicting powers in the world is a matter of 
experience with all Christians; and behind these conflicting 
powers are God, our Savior, and Satan, the destroyer. No 
other method than the one adopted could deal with a theme 
so vast and varied and convey an intelligible lesson. The ad- 
vantage we seem to gain from saying that this refers to Nero, 
and this to Napoleon, or that these four living creatures repre- 
sent Asia, Europe, Africa and America, or that the dragon 
represents China, is a mistake. We only pettifog for a slight 
and momentary effect and lose the greater good to be served 
by seeing these things m an omniscient light where their true 
characters are stamped so that neither names nor localities 
nor glosses of any kind can screen their true source and nature 
and end from our discernment. As on the heavenly, so on 
the infernal' side, while personalities, localities and dates are 
not directly given, they are always implied and can be seen by 
their nearness of function and relation. So are the times; they 
are not chronological, but are measured as trumpet times, that 
- is, times to be known by the dominance of these epochs which 
are represented also by the different colored horses and which 
mark the ages. 

God inspires all gracious and holy forces that make for good, 
and Satan instigates all that tend to destroy. It does not at 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 165 

first ap2:)ear how this trumpet could be called a "vroe"' upou 
the wicked, "them that dwell upon the earth," since to be 
compelled to live on the earth, where such creatures are, would 
seem to be a hardship enough, for it is a persecuting power 
that claims the earth and heaven, and the pit of the abyss 
and is red with the blood of saints. It is in the deeper view 
that those are not to be feared who kill the body only, and 
after that have no more that they can do. The saved have 
none of that dread of purgatorial fires with which the locusts 
restrain their Aictims from suicide, while they mercilessly 
fleece them. The saints are free from this deeper scourge. All 
things earthly they count but dross that they may win Christ. 
Xot only are all saints sufferers while living in the world, but 
the souls from beneath the altar cry, but even the eternal 
Father is long suffering and '^'the whole creation groaneth to- 
gether until now.'^ 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Pit of the abyss: Lake of fire and brimstone; caves and dens. 
Prison of devils: Cage of unclean birds; winepress of God's 
wrath; the sea of blood. 

Note. — The remarkable confirmation of Luke's writings is the 
surprise of this book. Christ's triumphant entry, the white horse 
seal, His aeath by the red horse seal, His negative victory in the 
pale horse seal, and His positive victory in the crucifixion seal; His 
ascension, the bestowment of the Holy Spirit, the exultant pentecost 
with the company of believers out of all nations in conjunction with 
the parts which the apostles, as trumpeters play, must give to Bible 
students a new element of theological inquiry. That these historic 
facts should receive further confirmation by a second part of Satanic 
simulations in a mimic Pentecost, written near the close of the 
century, arc factors with which we must reckon. 



166 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 



CHAPTER IX. 

Revelation IX, 12-21. 

THE SIXTH TRUMPET.— THE WORLD POWERS LET LOOSE. 

The sixth Trumpet is prefaced like the fifth, by a formal 
announcement, "The first woe is past; behold there come two 
woes hereafter." 

If the preceding trumpets describe conditions that must 
have required extension of time in carrying out, then this 
announcement is another clear note to show its ongoing. There 
are two woes to come "hereafter/' later in time, and they also 
have every characteristic of the successive progress of events. 
Not only do they follow each other "hereafter," but they are 
marked by changed conditions we are able to recognize as be- 
longing to different epochs. The action of this sixth trum- 
peter does not proceed direct from the sounding as in the pre- 
ceding trumpets. There is the introduction of another part, 
thus interrupting the order. 

And the sixth angel sounded and I heard a voice from the horns 
of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth 
angel, which had the trumpet. Loose the four angels which are hound 
at the great river Euphrates. 

It is a special voice from heaven. It is a special commission. 
This voice orders the sixth trumpeter to act a part in the 
drama which none of the others did. His office is out of the 
due order, both in being directed by a voice direct from the 
golden altar, and by acting a part in the drama all his own. 
Coming from the horns of the golden altar expresses the 
authority or power of the altar of sacrifice, that which gave to 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 167 

it its mighty authority. Christ's authority or jDower to open 
the seals rested on His having been slain for our sins. This 
voice from the golden altar said, "Loose the four angels which 
are bound at the great river Euphrates.'' This sounds very 
like the command we heard from the ascending angel in the 
mystic Pentecost (vii, 2), who bore the "Seal of the living God" 
and commanded the four angels to hold the four winds from 
blowing so as to allow the sealing of God's servants. It is 
indeed the same, the voice of Christ, the only voice that com- 
mands the world powers in any instance, and here commands 
His trumpeter to act a special part. 

In the one case these w^orld angels are commanded to not 
hurt the heavenly work of sealing the saints, etc. (vii, 1), as 
Christ's direct enemy, and in the other they are commanded 
to be loosed in order that they may hurt and matve war on 
the wicked as indirectly executing the judgments of God on 
the sinful, for He is to loose the world powers from a bondage. 
This is the second woe to "them that dwell on the earth." 
This not only shows great progress in Judgments on the wicked, 
but a vast increase of heavenly power that advances from a 
merely restraining power so as to allow the sealing of the saints, 
to a positive power that can command the world powers to be 
loosened that they may execute a "woe" upon the wicked; a 
"woe" which has three plagues by which "a third part of men" 
should be killed. 

As we heard in the group of the world seals a very noted 
voice that came from the midst of the four living creatures 
which represented such mercernary spirit as might sell out 
Christ and His cause, saying, "a measure of wheat for a penny, 
etc.," so here on the heavenly side we have in like manner a 
supplemental voice coming from this heavenly group of trum- 
pets which shows the heavenly power rising into the ascendant. 
But this new voice is not an added trumpet, just as that was 



168 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

not an added seal, bnt as that voice spoke the sentiment of all 
world power, so does this speak the sentiment of all heavenly 
power. Now we note this as the second supplemental office 
that has been added to the trumpets. The first one we identi- 
fied as the office of Matthias introduced by a special meeting 
and the offering of incense, etc. (viii, 2-5.) 

The Sixth Trumpeter is especially commissioned to loose 
the four angels, that is, the world powers. Paul, the apostle 
to the Gentiles, comes to view at once. We see him clearlyj 
unmistakably, in the shadowgraph. That is, the circumstances 
of the sixth trumpet in relation to the trumpet series is anaL 
ogous to the circumstances of Paul's call and relations to the 
apostleship, being out of the regular order. 

This trumpet recognizes the peculiar relations which Pau* 
sustained to Christ and to the other apostles, and to the Gen- 
tiles. As already explained, there are no personalities in these 
trumpets, but all the relations and differential functions of the 
apostles are faithfully kept, so that in these we can see the 
gospel story as carried out in the commission acted over again 
in signs and symbols and can even infer the personalities, in 
part, of those who at the first acted distinguished parts. We 
saw Matthias and his election, and Peter and his preaching 
at the opening of this trumpet series, and here at the close 
we have in the last trumpet the circumstances of the call of 
Paul to the ministry so faithfully preserved that we see the 
double easily. Thus is preserved all the variations of the apos- 
tolic function in carrying forward the Great Commission, and 
upon those facts and relations as pattern or shadow, the new 
church, our present reformation, is foretold. It is Pauline. 

Peter and Matthias and now Paul are brought to view by 
their distinctive relations to the Great Commission which is 
the pattern that guides these seals and trumpets. And we shall 
presently see John, also, who not only writes this book, bnt 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 1G9 

his shadowgraph is also taken all alone^ as when all the 
others have ceased to act any part, and he in Patmos writes the 
valedictory of the apostles' school beyond the record of Luke. 

Paul (Saul), who was engaged in crushing his Lord's feet 
on earth, heard a voice from the anguished head in heaven, 
which arrested him, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
Me?" And Jesus said unto him, "I have appeared unto thee 
to make of thee a minister and a witness." "I will send thee 
far hence to the Gentiles." Paul was called to the apostleship 
out of due season and due order, but was engaged in labors 
more abundant than they all. The same relations wliich Paul's 
ministry sustained to the other apostles and to Christ and to 
the Gentiles are just the relations which this sixth trumpet 
sustains to the other trumpets and to the voice that calls from 
the golden altar and to the four angels, or nations which they 
represent. 

The unmistakable shadowgraph of Matthias' election at the 
beginning and the call of Paul to the ministry in this last of 
the labor trumpets (the seventh being Sabbatic), settles the 
question and compels us to recognize that the prophecy is 
laid upon patterns, and that this is that heavenly design to 
be certainly discerned and followed. These four angels bound 
in the great River Euphrates are the world powers again, now 
subject to and bound by a new power under the symbol of "the 
great River Euphrates." Their conditions are now changed 
from the former state. They now appear in bondage them- 
selves, have become vassals to a new power that comes out of 
the old, risen out of that sea where the burning mountain sank 
and dissolved. The pagan Caesars have gone down and the 
new Caesar has come up with his locust swarm to devastate the 
earth, and it is on this condition of the Avorld that a new power 
appears upon the field and comes not as locusts now, but 
as an army of horsemen. That is, the four angels, or world 



170 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

powers, when loosed become an army to be a woe to the wicked. 
But they are bound and tributary to mystery Babylon, and so 
are said to be bound in the great Eiver Euphrates; and the 
trumpeter is commanded to loose them, that is, to set them 
free from this bondage; and when set free he sees them and 
they are become a great army of horsemen, that is, the old 
world powers, called the four angels, are now ordered to be 
freed from that Apollyon, the destroyer, that came up out of 
the pit of the abyss. For Apollyon, and "the great Eiver Eu- 
phrates,'^ and the mystery Babylon, and the Diabolical Pente- 
cost show the world powers have become enslaved to the later 
papal power. 

The Eeformation broke upon us when the world powers were 
in a state of bondage to this locust power. Babylon, as the 
first seat of universal power, is the type of this new power in 
which both the people of God are captive, as they were then, 
and the world powers are also captive and to be loosed. As 
God's children also are called upon to come out of her "that 
ye partake not of her sins," they are not, however, identical with 
this army of horsemen. This is the general period of Exodus 
from captivity toward the New Jerusalem, and the four angels 
of this sixth trumpet show how the world powers emerge out 
of the Dark Ages of locusts' dominion into an army of horse- 
men; the world turned loose armed to execute the second woe 
upon them that dwell on the earth. 

It is a punishment of the wicked by the emancipated world. 
The Eiver Euphrates was not only tributary to Babylon and 
the very stream of life to its sinful existence, but was also the 
channel of death to it when Cyrus drained off the river and 
marched into the city through its emptied bed and captured 
it and laid its pride in the dust. World governments that up- 
hold that great locust power, Spiritual Babylon, are well rep- 
resented by the symbol, "the Eiver Euphrates." To loose these 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 171 

powers, bound by a corrupt fealty, was to set them free to "de- 
stroy to the end.'' They will no longer as before have to go 
to that king of locnsts to ask whether they may declare war 
or conclude a peace. 

AYe are living witnesses that that day is gone by and there 
will be no other general power ever rise again till Christ reigns. 
As Paul's ministry was especially to the Gentiles, there is a 
great and striking fitness about these dramatic parts in the 
imagery of the sixth trumpet. The lesson is plain. It ' tells 
us that by the preaching of the word of God in this sixth 
trumpet light shall arise. The governments of the world shall 
cast off papal allegiance and turn themselves into a military 
power to kill a fourth part of men, etc. Again the effacement 
of personalities from the mind, while it entails some difficulty 
in reading at first, has the advantage of showing all things by 
their substance, their essence, and we know and recognize them 
by their relations to the Alpha and the Omega. This raises 
our every thought to its greatest height, and shows that all 
roads lead to Christ. In this way, too, we distinguish the true 
spiritual succession from the brutish and false. It is a suc- 
cession of doing the will of God on earth, and not the following 
of mere names and forms. We are not used to seeing things 
by these deeper moral relations but rather by their external 
and less important accidents and circumstances, and so we are 
slow to recognize them by these more essential and inward 
relations. 

If I show a cartoon of a boy drawing a plow and another 
showing him in the schoolroom with his books, and another 
showing him in the pulpit preaching, one v,^ould readily say, 
"that means that a farmer's son, raised to the plow, went to 
school, and is now preaching." That is easy to be seen, and 
yet it gives no light on his moral relations unless in the last 
act; but if I show a horse merely and then a slave under a 



172 MYSTERY OP THE aOLDEN CLOTH; 

master^ and then an angel of God with a golden censer^ offer- 
ing incense^ I strike at once into deeply moral and spiritual 
relations^ and the lesson is not so easily read. Bnt it tells the 
same story religionsly^ in its deeper bearings. While he is in 
the place of a horse he stands related to things morally only 
as a horse, and under his master only as a slave, but now bear- 
ing testimony for Christ he is as an angel of God. 

By this method, a cartoon showing a wolf destroying sheep, 
and a second one showing little children leading the wolf, 
blind and humbl-e, into the city, and then a third one in which 
he is seen acting the part of a faithful shepherd caring for the 
sheep, would represent Paurs conversion in its deeper spiritual 
and ethical bearings. In this w^ay we sge Paul's ministry 
through the sixth trumpet. He came last to his office and was 
called directly from heaven and especially commissioned to the 
Gentiles, and proved his divine call by his works. 

And the four angels were loosed which were prepared for the 
hour, and day, and month, and year, that they should kill the third 
part of men. 

That is, the secular powers were dissolved from their alle- 
giance to Mystic Babylon, presently to be treated at length. 
It was done by Christ, done through the form of Paul's call 
and apostleship, done in fact by and through the truth, preached 
by the faithful believers as we now know, and many of them 
by name. The several trumpets do not present the several 
apostles separately in their several persons, but as all the apostles 
in the several functions carried ouir. Just as Peter's preach- 
ing on Pentecost represented all the apostles, but as several of 
the apostles led in these parts, we can see their personalities 
through the parts acted. In this instance we clearly see Paul 
by circumstances peculiar to himself. 

This method leads all the time to the study and observa- 



oil, THE RIVEN VEIL. 173 

tion, not of events as we outwardly note them, but to disposi- 
tions and relations and conditions by their deeper intrinsic and 
divine values. Now since the contest of the evil against the 
good must be in its essence always the same, the different mani- 
festations growing out of this contest must in the nature of 
things be analogous. That is, since the struggle between the 
heavenly powers and the world powers is at bottom the same, 
prophecy may have many fulfillments beside the most promi- 
nent one, to which it primarily refers. This is a matter of 
personal experience with every one in whose heart has struggled 
the principles of good and evil. All the mounds and hillocks 
are parts of and prophecies of the greater mountain — are all 
made of the same earth, are raised by the same causes, the 
mounds being miniature mountains only. So we find of the 
heavenly powers that while they differentiate upon a historic 
pattern that re-asserts creation, and the carrying out of the 
new creation by Christ and His apostles, the account does not 
break away in telling us of the future as though it were in 
some way a different dispensation, but only the different re- 
sults as it proceeds toward its consummation and under one 
and the same commission which we ourselves are at this moment 
carrying forward. So that the true servants of God who put 
their lives at His disposal, are now the true successors of the 
heavenly powers and are carrying forward the power that heaven 
exerts upon earth. A worldling sees only the outward of events, 
while the sealed servants of God see what lies under and causes 
them. 

A worldling sees a French Eevolution only when it has broken 
loose; a Christian sees it all the time it is gathering. He sees 
the signs of the times and absolutely knows in the very na- 
ture of the case and from his own experience what must hap- 
pen, and God knows when. We are told that the four angels 



174 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

were "prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year 
that they should kill a third part of men." 

The use of four words of time — "hour/' "day/' "month" and 
"year," is alluding to the condition only as of world time and 
as a time that will certainly come known to God, kept within 
the Father's own authority. That time has come so far that 
living men have seen the last vestige of secular power broken 
from the king of the locusts and the whole world let loose to 
fight, as Daniel said, to "destroy till the end." 

And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten 
thousand times ten thousand and I heard the number of them. 

Two hundred million is about the present fighting force of 
the world, though he is not trying to give the actual, but 
the symbol number. This can refer neither to the actual num- 
ber, nor to any one battle, for the world has not all been at 
actual war at one time, nor were so many men ever horseback 
at the same time, but all are now free from Babylon and are 
liable to engage in this great battle till its purposes are ac- 
complished, to destroy both the locust power and to put an 
end to brute power in the earth. 

This military dress suggests the nature of the work to be 
done. The symbols of the first trumpet were "hail and fire 
mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth." These 
symbols are quite similar, "fire and hyacinth," probably the red 
variety which would answer to blood, and brimstone, which 
suggests a deeper thought as having to do with the conditions 
that came out of the pit of the abyss, punishment in kind as 
where he says, "God hath judged your judgment on her," 
xviii, 20. 

The mission of these symbols brings the pale horse again to 
view with his rider. Death, and his following by Hades, and 
by the reappearance of horses where there is a third part of 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 175 

men to be killed, as there it was stated that under the pale 
horse they should have authority over a fourth part of the 
earth to kill, etc. It is indeed the same great truth, the world 
powers in the act of breaking down beast rule and preparing 
the way of the Lord. This is that crucifixion of the world 
powers spoken of in the sixth seal. The four horses showed 
us the great changes the world powers were to pass through 
as from Christ in His own person, and the sixth seal showed 
Christ, as in a personal act of retaliation, crucifying them, while 
this is the army of horses associated with the trumpets, as where 
Christ is acting through human agencies, in judgments, and 
hence a great army of horses, to visit the second "woe'^ upon 
"them that dwell on the earth." 

The picture is as if there were no head, no beast of uni- 
versal power as the parts in the king's dream and DanieFs dream, 
or as one of the four horses, but now v/orld power without any 
common head, simply let loose from a common bondage to 
kill a fourth part of men. And they do not, as those just men- 
tioned, in any way indicate the progress of ongoing time, or 
as being of different kingdoms, etc., but are loosed to inflict 
a general, a second woe, upon the worldly. Ah, the sinful peo- 
ple who said "release unto us Barabbas and crucify Christ" are 
still in the world; and now they are to be punished, "for the 
great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to 
stand?" Those who j)ut Jesus to death have their successors 
yet, but the world has so far changed that but few are literally 
put to death any more. There is but one rebellion against 
God and it all proceeds from the same source, and there is but 
one army of the Lord and it is all animated by one Spirit. 
The symbols connected with these horses are not Christian. 
There is no white linen, no white horses, no vials of incense^ 
no harps or crowns, no new songs nor rejoicing acclamations 
of praise to the Lamb, such as we constantly see in the com- 



It6 MYSTERY OF THlE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

pany of the saints. Besides, the saints who have been in bond- 
age with Babylon are separately called upon to come out (xviii,, 
4), but those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads, 
who are the prey of devouring locusts and are led captive by 
this great power, are delivered and are to turn upon her and 
destroy her, as appears later. Neither do we find any symbol 
of Christ or of the Holy Spirit in the acts of this trumpet. 
"We war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities 
and powers," etc. 

The world as a prisoner is represented to be loosed from po- 
litical and ecclesiastical bondage and to be a world wide army 
to destroy itself and to put down beast rule. We now see how 
the symbols change as we progress onward through the changes 
which the world power is to pass through. Viewed as His exer- 
cise of man power, it is a great image of a man in four parts, 
as gold, silver, brass, etc. Viewed as originating in the sinful 
consent of the people, brute power that comes out of the sea of 
humanity where the winds strive; viewed as active war forces, 
they are horses upon the earth; viewed in their exercise of civil 
power, they stand upon the four corners of the earth hold- 
ing the four winds from blowing, and viewed as captives to 
the locust power, they are bound in the river Euphrates, and 
viewed as the scourge to destroy all brute power, they are an 
army to execute judgment on "them that dwell upon the earth, 
etc.," but through all phases, beast power, apostate and sinful. 

All these changes come from the voice of Him who ascends 
with the seal of the living God and who commands His sixth 
trumpeter to loose the four angels, who become at once a world 
of liberated militia "to kill a third part of men." We are in 
the times of the Eeformation, of the mystic Pentecost, of the 
Second Church, and of the multitude of saints that no man can 
number, and getting away from the dark locust age out of which 
it came, and the world in arms as it is this moment, breaking 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 177 

down arbitrary rule and freeing tlie nations. We read tliem, it 
is true, in a mystery but the more sure by this two-fold tes- 
timony of shadow and substance, do they witness for God. The 
last century has seen greater changes for good probably than 
all the seventeen preceding, and all the forces that are moving 
the world are moving with ever accelerating force by geomet- 
rical ratios. This world cannot much longer choose its own 
sinful way. These horses are accoutered in a wonderful man- 
ner. 

And I saw the horses in the vision and them that sat on them 
having breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and 
the heads of the horses are as the heads of lions and out of their 
mouths proceeded fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three 
plagues was the third part of men killed. 

Literal "fire, smoke and brimstone" is ignited gun powder. 
John says he saw this army killing with "fire, smoke and brim- 
stone," and we are to see their deeper, their symbol meaning. We 
found smoke coming out of the pit of the abyss that darkened 
the sun and the air, and it stands for ignorance and supersti- 
tion. Brimstone occurs six times in the book and six would 
answer for its proper symbol, as the source "whence come wars 
and fightings," and the lake that burns with brimstone points 
to punishment more than mere bodily. It is a woe upon them 
that dwell upon the earth, the symbols of modern warfare 
used to express that deeper punishment to them that believe 
not. John both heard and saw the number of the horsemen. 
He saw the modern method of warfare with fire arms and used 
them for symbols just as he would see things then known and 
present to the world. Horses with heads like lions would be 
the effect in his seeing as a man's face leaning forward upon 
his horse, the horse's mane and the man's face in combina- 
tion giAdng a lion-like effect. 

It would seem that he saw our modern way of fighting with 
12 



178 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

fire arms. He says, "I saw in vision/' Mnch that has been 
told ns could not be oenlar. No one could see the four living 
creatures, both on. the throne and around about the throne at 
the same time. These are mind impressions that belong to 
the divine vision. He saw the very state of warfare that was 
to overthrow beast rule. He saw fire, smoke and brimstone pro- 
ceed from the horses' m.ouths twelve hundred years before men 
learned to fight with fire arms. The "woe" which the horse- 
men were to inflict must be viewed in a broader and deeper 
sense as affecting the great purpose of Christ's spiritual reign, 
"By these three plagues" must be regarded as more than merely 
killing men's bodies. 

For the power of the horses was in their mouths aPxd in their 
tails, for they have tails like unto serpents, and have heads and 
with them they do hurt. 

The fact that the death-dealing seems to come more from 
the horses than from their riders is because the horse is the 
dominant in the cast, just as man was dominant in the king's 
image, of different parts, etc. Three times we have now been 
brought to the times of the reformation, and we see the rise 
of protestant governments in this sixth trumpet with a strange 
mixture of the old and of the more enlightened conditions 
mingled. Here we look forward to the seventh trumpet to 
the time of the kingdom of Christian statehood and Christian 
brotherhood, that is, the kingdom of God regnant on earth. 

This time of great change was also shown in the sixth seal. 
John saw a great earthquake, and darkness shrouded the earth, 
and in the place where the sun should be there was only a 
jet cavern, black as sackcloth of hair, and in that quarter of 
the heavens where the moon's face should shine, there was 
but a red ball, red as blood. All the stars that had twinkled in 
their places had broken from their constellations and lay upon 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 179 

the earth hke unripe figs, shaken from the trees by a mighty 
wind. The broad canopy, once all spangled and glorious, was 
rolled together like a scroll, and the mountains and islands left 
their ancient seats and fled away, and the kings and the princes 
and the mighty men fled and hid themselves in the caves and 
rocks of the mountains and "call upon the rocks and the moun- 
tains to fall on us and hide us from the face of Plim that sit- 
teth upon the throne and from the WTath of the Lamb." 

It is the time of killing. It is the time of the pale horse, 
the killing of the world powers ridden by "Death and followed 
by Hades." 

For authority was given unto them over the fourth part of the 
earth to kill with sword and famine, and death, and by wild beasts 
of the earth. 

The sixth trumpet supplements the sixth seal with the ex- 
hibition of the world powers loosed from bondage to Babvlon 
and let go, prepared for the hour, the day, the month and the 
year to kill a third part of men, to execute the day of His 
wrath in a world-wide military display of awful aspect. In 
this manner He will crucify the world powers. Their number 
is "twice ten thousand times ten thousand," which falls far be- 
hind the number which He gave to the saints, "ten thousand 
times ten thousand and thousands of thousands." It would 
seem strange that in such a scourge as this all men should not 
repent, but such^ John tells us, is the awful fact. He sadly 
comments: 

And the rest of mankind which were not killed with these plagues 
repented not of the works of their hands that they should not wor- 
ship devils, etc. 

What a sight to see men under all the lights and judgment 
of God still unrepentant. Such is the awful truth "if they 



180 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded though one rose from the dead." 

Here we have one of the most noticeable cases of the care 
that is taken of usage in number. The sins of the merely 
worldling are given in the use of four, while the idolatrous 
are given in six. 

They repented not of the works of their hands that they should 
not worship devils, and the idols of gold, and of silver and brass, 
and of stone, and of wood which can neither hear nor see nor walk. 
Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor 
of their fornication, nor of their thefts. 

Six is the sign of idolatry, four of apostasy, and here they 
are placed side by side by mere enumeration in a catalogue of 
sins. This trumpet shows the present strange condition of the 
world. It is a middle state. The purest Christian reformer 
and the most brutish corrupter are tolerated, and the man of 
easy virtue who stands midway between these is a general favor- 
ite for place and power. 

A great Frenchman, looking into this age, has said, ^^Society 
inexorably keeps at bay two classes of men, those who attack 
it and those who guard it." A great American said, "The 
world puts two kinds of men in jail, those who are not good 
enough for society and those who are too good." A great 
preacher said, "Until we can put away from the minds of men 
the common error that the current Christianity of the churches 
is the true Christianity, we can make but little progress in 
converting the world." In politics at least the most favored 
seems to be he who can be at the same time the fairest with- 
out, and the foulest within. 

This trumpet presents a time when the light is rising and 
the righteous judgments of God begin to fall heavily upon 
the world, and the shadow rests dark upon the disobedient. We 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 181 

have again come to the conditions that belong to the great 
reformation and to the place in the trumpets where in dne 
order we should expect it. Its light brings to view that dark 
time out of which the Reformation was called by the voice of 
God, preached again from recovered manuscripts of scripture 
as we shall presently see. The heavenly Pentecost brought 
Christ to view in His true character, and in His relations to 
His Father, and to His disciples and to the world, and so this 
mock Pentecost throws light upon the enemy, and shows his re- 
lations to the beast power of sinful man and to his father, the 
devil, in oppressing sinners and killing saints. The powers on 
one side must continue to follow the ascending star that leads to 
glory, and on the other side the declining and waning star that 
leads to the pit of the abyss. 

What a judgment is every true life upon all deceptions of 
a mere worldly selfish existence! What a standing rebuke such 
a life to every sneaking, mousing thing that crawls about in 
the dark, to hiss at the approach of light! With such a world 
of new opportunities as now lies open in every direction what a 
woe upon every soul that will rest upon any ground below the 
highest on all questions of humanity, or that will stop short 
of the whole truth, or that will consent for the sake of any 
pride of place to withhold any word or act of reproof from all 
the works of darkness and the devil. These trumpets record a 
procession of mighty changes in the world, and it is out of these 
changes that we form what w^e call history. 

AYe have now seen conditions that belong to the Reformation 
in the Sixth Seal and in the mystic Pentecost with its one 
hundred and forty-four thousand sealed on the forehead, and 
now we see the most wonderful state of the world upon which 
it gives light at its rising. 



182 



MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH: 



The following double column comparison will show more than 
twenty points in which the literal and the mystic agree in the 
two great carryings out of the Great Commission; the one real 
and historic and the other then future, but now in process of 
being carried out. 



1. Christ's ministry preceded 
the ministry of the apostles. 

2. At first Christ taught 
openly, afterward by parables. 

3. A day of Pentecost lay 
between Christ's ministry and 
the ministry of the apostles. 

4. The apostles explained 
Christ's teachings after Pente- 
cost. 

5. Christ kept His apostles 
in His care while with them. 
John X, 29. 

6. Christ ascended bearing 
the promise of the Holy Spirit. 

7. Christ sent the Holy Spirit 
on Pentecost and saved 3,000. 

8. Those converted were de- 
vout Jews out of every nation. 

9. Christ's personal ministry 
ended with Pentecost and He 
rested, etc. 

10. Christ on Pentecost re- 
versed the verdict of the world 
powers. 

11. Christ commissioned His 
apostles to preach abroad. 

12. He gave a countermand 
to wait for the Holy Spirit. 

13. While waiting for Pente- 
cost the apostles pray and add 
another apostle. 



The Seal's ministry preceded 
the ministry of the Trumpets, 

The Revelation begins with 
open letters, afterward by Seals. 

A mystic day of Pentecost lay 
between the Seals opening and 
trumpeting. 

The trumpeters explain seals- 
opener after mystic Pentecost. 

He holds them as stars when 
He is among the candlesticks. 

Ascends bearing the seal of 
the living God. vii, 2. 

On mystic Pentecost he seals 
or saves 144,000, vii, 4. 

Those sealed were out of all 
the tribes scattered abroad, vii, 5. 

After his part in mystic Pen- 
tecost He breaks Sabbath seal 
and rests. 

In the mystic Pentecost He 
restrains them. 

He gave trumpets to them to 
sound His truth. 

The Trumpeters wait holding 
their trumpets, viii, 2. 

The trumpeters wMle waiting 
add another to their number 
with prayers. 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 



183 



14. The Holy Spirit was 
manifest as tongues of fire. 

15. Those who were saved 
had all things common. 

16. The apostles began to 
preach on Pentecost. 

17. Commotion and persecu- 
tion followed the apostles' 
preaching. 

18. After Pentecost there 
was a great multitude added not 
numbered. 

19. The three thousand con- 
verted on Pentecost were first 
fruits. 

20. Christ called Paul to the 
ministry as the last by a direct 
call. 

21. Last of all Christ ap- 
peared to John in Patmos and 
commissioned him prophet. 

22. The first church was be- 
gun by Christ ascended, the Holy 
Spirit descended and the apos- 
tles preaching, the world con- 
victed and sinners saved. 

These are the facts of sacred 
history, identified with Peter 
and Jerusalem. 



The Holy Spirit as fire from 
the altar is cast forth. 

Those who were sealed had 
all things common, vii, 9-17. 

The Trumpets began to sound 
on mystic Pentecost. 

Hail and fire mingled with 
blood when trumpets sound. 

After mystic Pentecost a mul- 
titude no man could number. 

The 144,000 converted on 
mystic Pentecost were first 
fruits. 

Christ called the last trum- 
peter by a direct call, ix, 13. 

After the sixth trumpet He 
appears with the Revelation 
open. X, 1. 

The second church was begun 
by an angel ascended, the Seal 
of God descended, the trumpets 
sounding the world powers re- 
strained and the servants of 
God recalled. 

These are the promises of 
sacred prophecy, identified with 
Paul and the Reformation. 



184 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH: 



CHAPTEE X. 

Revelation X. 

JOHN COMMISSIONED A PROPHET. 

The great shadowgraph receives in this chapter another exten- 
sion. 

By his position and the parts he acted we are to see John's 
place in the Christian economy standing forth in a clear light. 
The literary form we have been following up to this stage is 
taken entirely from Luke's writings, and nothing is seen dis- 
tinctive to Mathew or Mark. John now extends Luke's acts by 
about thirty-five years by showing this crowning event which 
Luke, it seems, did not live to witness and record, and which 
has lain dead as a stone and nearly without historic value or 
setting down to our day. 

Luke closed his acts with the advent of Paul a prisoner in 
Kome before the year 64 A. D., while John's greater acts close 
with the advent of Christ triumphant over death in the isle 
of Patmos about the year A. D. 96. The pattern we have fol- 
lowed has led us by the lights of the great events from the 
"beginning at Jerusalem" with a certainty that enables us to see 
the chief actors in the drama by the distinguished parts which 
they respectively bore. 

There Peter, Paul and John stand forth in their own places 
in the Christendom of the first century both by their official 
distinctions and by an unity of design not to be mistaken. In 
this presentation of them we have the only true perspective of 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 185 

the acts of apostles and of "the differences of administration by 
the same Lord" and the diversities of gifts by the same spirit 
in their true proportion. 

Look at the clear mold into which this last act is cast, Christ 
opened the Seals and a Pentecost followed, prefaced by His 
ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit; then the trumpet- 
ers, being given their trumpets to sonnd, "stood before God," 
waited -and added another apostle to their number by prayers, 
and then "prepared themselves to sound." In this election of 
Matthias we can not help seeing Peter, who was the mover and 
the chief speaker both there and on the day of Pentecost. We 
see him by these acts and also by the act of casting out fire taken 
from the altar, which is a symbol for preaching, and this was 
Peter's distinctive part at Jerusalem at the beginning. 

When we come to follow these trumpeters separately we fail 
to dectect any personality till we come to the sixth, which is 
the last of the labor trumpets, and there we clearly find Paul 
by the characteristic incidents of his call and commission. 

The call is direct from "the golden altar," and the mission is 
specific to "loose" the imprisoned world powers w^hich resulted 
in the army of horsemen to engage in the great battle for free- 
dom. In this showing of Paul we recall his own words as "one 
born out of due time." "He was seen of me last of all." "I am 
in labors more abundant than they all." But not more clearly 
does all this appear in the actual Paul of the first century than 
in the Protestant Reformation of which Paul is as truly the in- 
spiring genius and leader now as then. And we find ourselves 
Pauline even to thinking and feeling that in him we have "seen 
the Lord last of all." 

But otherwise indeed must we find the whole truth, for John, 
who gives us these characteristic acts of Peter and Paul, con- 
tinues beyond the accepted history of Luke and in the chapter 



18G MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

now before us, gives the last and triumphant act in a splendid 
drama of the Lord's appearance to himself in Patmos. 

The first chapter of Eevelation takes up the "Acts of the 
Apostles'' where Luke left us, as follows: 

"I John who am also your brother and companion in the 
tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus Christ 
was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God 
and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on 
the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet 
saying, I am Alpha and Omega the first and the last and what 
thou seest write in a book and send to the seven church which 
are in Asia." 

This is a purely historical statement of fact, as much so as 
Paul's conversion, and is to be joined to Luke's Acts of 
Apostles. The Eevelation being of the best attested authen- 
ticity of any New Testament book, it adds fresh authority to 
Luke, who was both historian of the Christian Church and the 
biographer of Peter and of Paul, and the close affinities of his 
writings with John's gospel and Eevelation show a stronger 
synoptic affinity than Matthew and Mark of the earlier period. 

The tenth chapter contains a dramatic representation of 
John's call to the prophetic office in the same unique strain 
as that which raised Peter and Paul to view in their historic 
setting by their most striking and characteristic parts as 
apostles, each acting under a special and personal commission. 

But not only does John's order and place in the Christian 
economy come to view by this new appreciation, not only does 
his relation to Peter and Paul receive a new light as the one 
reserved of the Lord "last of all to receive his crowning Eevela- 
tion," but also the place and part which that vision itself was 
destined to bear in the greater acts of the apostles by a greater 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. iS^ 

commission upon the wider field of time till the end, and the 
kingdom of God be come, in fnll demonstration. 

It gives its own setting among the visions of the Xew Testa- 
ment and that setting leaves not the slightest gronnd for onr 
classing it with those apocalypses that preceded and followed the 
Christian century. 

In its own characteristics it classes itself with the transfigura- 
tion of Christ, and by its method of involving the visions of 
Peter and Paul, gives in its setting the unmistakable place of 
preeminent Eevelation and sets John in his true place with Peter 
and Paul by their distinguishing parts in the administration of 
the "one and selfsame spirit/'* 

The writings of John come last of all, and in their deeper 
soundings we can drop the plummet to the bottom and get our 
bearings. It gives us a new crystallization of apostolic Christ- 
ianity in which all its vital acts wear a new proportion, and by 
a broader application of its purposes to the state of the world 
raises a new hope, and coming, as it does, last of all, may well 
be called the new testament of the Xew Testament — "the stone, 
the chief cornerstone, which the builders have rejected." 

Peter stands out clearly as the head of the first movement, 
and we see him parodied at Eome. Paul as clearly stands at 
the head of the second stage by a special call, and is seen revived 
in the Reformation and John at the head of first century Christ- 
ianity in its ripest stage is yet to appear as the great teacher 
in the world's regeneration to give to us in mystery a knowledge 
of "the truth that may advance us the thought that may save us 
transmitted from one century to another sealed, barren and dead 
as a stone till some one strike it into fire, at a time may be like 
that which called it forth — a time of great trouble and falling 
away. 

The scene of this chapter opens with the Messenger, Christy 



188 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

descending, clothed with a cloud (his ascension robe) and a 
rainbow (the sign of promise fulfilled) upon his head and his 
face shining as upon the mount of transfiguration where he ful- 
filled that promise saying, "Some of you shall not see death till 
y& see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." 

And I saw another angel coming down out of heaven arrayed 
with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was 
as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire, and he had in his hand 
a little book, open. 

This book has not left his hand since he went and received 
it "from the right hand of him that sat upon the throne." We 
are still within the time of the trumpet soundings, the seventh 
and last having yet to be heard and by the order of these pro- 
ceedings in this place despite the criticisms to the contrary of 
many scholars Christ called John to this office of prophet to 
testify of "the things which shall come to pass hereafter." 

He holds the book open and commands John to "seal up the 
things which the thunders uttered," but the book itself in 
Christ's hand is open, and John is to make a personal appropria- 
tion of it. As John was also commanded to seal not up the 
book 22:10, it wears the double aspect of being both hidden and 
revealed. When John first saw the book it was written both 
"within and on the outside." 

That is, in the larger sense both the open letters of Christ to 
the churches and the sealed letters of the Almighty comprise the 
Eevelation of Jesus Christ, Which God gave to Him to make 
known to his servants, but John himself had written those open 
letters and wept much for some one who should be able to lose 
the seals of the mysterious hidden seven messages in the right 
hand of him that sat upon the throne "the things that must 
come to pass hereafter," and it is this that is called the "little 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 189 

book," and Christ, still holding it, has broken the seals, and the 
trumpets are still expounding them. 

Now the Lord comes down to John, just what he claimed 
(Ch. 1), and brings a Revelation which is both revealed and 
hidden as were Christ's parables and proverbs, till the time 
when that which they had received "in the ear" "in secret'' 
should be proclaimed upon the housetops. This coming down 
of the Lord must not be taken for His final coming, though it 
may imply it, but it must find its meaning in this dramatic 
showing of His coming to John, so that the plan of the vision 
sweeps within it "all things which Christ promised the Holy 
Spirit should show to them." Christ's coming to the world in 
general must be looked for in the parts which He distinctly 
acted as His own as we saw in the seals opening, or as we shall 
see later, where He acts parts in the regeneration exactly com- 
plementing the seal openings and carrying out the wider mission 
of salvation and of judgments, but not in the trumpets nor their 
corrolary series, the angels of wrath. Why should it seem to us 
strange that He should so come to John, for He appeared to 
Peter and Paul on occasions of great emergency and gave them 
each an apocalypse, which had the highest meaning for the 
Kingdom of God. But in this we have another great emergency. 

It was upon the strength of a vision given to Peter (the com- 
plement of another given to Cornelius) that the gospel broke its 
confines within the Jewish church and won the first gentile con- 
vert to Christianity. 

The spread of the gospel throughout Asia came not of any 
orders nor from the great commission, but directly out of the 
vision of Paul on his way to Damascus with authority to arrest 
its progress and in like manner the immediate ground on which 
the gospel found its way into Europe was another vision given 
to Paul of a man of Macedonia saying "Come over into Mace- 
donia and help us." 



190 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

And he set his right foot upon the sea and his left upon the 
earth and he cried with a great voice as a lion roareth and when he 
cried the seven thunders uttered their voices. 

Here they are together again; Christ and His apostles, in the 
same correspondent relations as before. What He teaches in 
parable they publish upon the housetops; when He trims His 
heavenly lights they shine as stars, etc. What He writes to 
the churches they carry as messengers; what He opens to them 
from the broken seals, they sound out as trumpeters, and now 
what He cries out in a voice like a lion, they utter in voices 
of thunder that shake the heavens and the earth. His taking 
position with one foot on the earth and one on the sea is that 
He may be heard round the earth, hence also His loud cry. 
Christ had once, while on the earth, called John and his brother 
^^sons of thunder," but now the apostle's office is as thunder 
to correspond with His lion-like roar. "What I tell you in 
darkness speak ye in the light, and what ye hear in the ear 
proclaim ye. upon the housetops." 

He had so explained to them in secret that before He left 
them they said, "now speakest thou plainly and speakest no 
proverb." From being preachers in fact to letter carriers in 
form, and then to trumpeters and then to thunderers shows 
the rising toward a thrilling climax of power. What was it 
that Christ shouted? It was the Revelation God gave to Him 
to show to His servants, but was only then being given to 
John by the angel. He shows the book is open, holding it 
open in His hand, and then shouts it; that is, makes it known 
and the seven thunderers utter it. They uttered the same 
thing. They repeated after Him in thunder tones. The re- 
lation is unquestionable. This has been exactly His method 
from the beginning. It is now the opening time and the mys- 
tery is coming to an end. The Eevelation by general con- 
sent has been a sealed book to this hour, so much so, that it 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 191 

is a reproach to any one to confidently profess to understand 
it. Causing it to be understood is the lesson of this drama 
and the forms enable us to identify the actors and the time 
and place. 

At a time here shown to lie between the sixth and seventh 
trumpets the Eevelation will be given and shown to His 
servants, to understand, and when understood will be the voice 
of God like the roar of a lion as coming from Christ, and as 
seven voices of thunder as from the apostles. Standing upon 
the sea and upon the earth in an all embracing attitude Christ 
shouts aloud the hitherto sealed book, and His cry is echoed 
as by seven-fold power of the apostles. The fact pointed-oirc 
is perfectly clear and intelligible, though it is told us in vision 
by drama in symbol. It simply show^s it will be made known 
to His servants. The first giving of the Eevelation to the 
Lamb being attended with so great dramatic display, it is in 
keeping that the second giving should be attended by a like 
demonstration. By searching diligently we do find its mean- 
ing, and our making it known is as the voice of thunder, just 
as our preaching the Gospel is sounding the Trumpets, the 
apostles being used in form only, while the work is in fact 
being done by the saints and just as the letters were probably 
borne by John himself, represented as being sent through the 
apostles. 

When the seven thunders uttered their voices I was about to 
write and I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Seal up the things 
which the seven thunders uttered and write them not. 

If John had written what he heard he would have defeated 
the purpose intended to be served by sealing it in mystery. 
Christ has been bringing to pass these great changes and is 
now fulfilling them, and when this book is read it will be as 



192 MYSTEiRY OP THE COLDEN CLOTH; 

the voice of God, the shout of the angel and thunder of human 
voices. 

The word "mystery" is used in this book in a way to show 
that it was intended to conceal at least a part, and that it was 
very successfully done, as most agree, but it was also to be 
revealed at the proper time, just as the advent of Christ, and 
now when John hears the proclamation of the little secret book 
of God, he would write it but is forbidden. At one time our 
Lord was seized upon by those who sought to make Him a 
king, and who did not understand His kingdom. He said "My 
kingdom is not of this world." His kingdom is explained in 
this book. Plainly speaking John heard or saw the meaning 
of the little book being given, as we are now trying to give 
it, but was told to seal it up, or leave it as he had seen it in 
the seals and trumpets where it is at the same time both given, 
and sealed up, couched in symbols and allegories but not un- 
derstood till the time come, and the time has come. 

Time has helped us to explain it, for it has been and is now 
being fulfilled before our very eyes. The things are now mostly 
history, and understanding them will give to the world an epoch 
of the mightiest uplift the heavenly power has yet exerted upon 
mankind. This cry, the last and greatest, is to be heard by 
all the world that the mystery is finished. These earth and 
heaven shaking thunders will be an awakening to the children 
of earth that the kingdom is near at hand. 

Christ finished His world ministry here below, the victim 
of man's wrath, with a cry of pain on the cross, but now with 
His face all radiant with the sun, and the rainbow upon His 
head where a thorny crown had rested, showing the promises 
all fulfilled, the earth and sea now under His feet He cries 
again with a voice that touches every shore. The little book 
is the key that unlocks all revelation. Its deepest fountains 
will flow when it is understood. 



I 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 193 

This impulse to write what he heard came out of the same 
heart of heavenly fire vrhence proceeded that weeping over the 
sealed book and that longing to hear about the white multitude. 
How changed that heart since the time he asked his Lord to 
permit him to call down fire upon the inhospitable Samaritans! 
John's curiosity has been contagious, for few have ever looked 
upon these wondrous dramas and sayings who have not felt 
the strongest desire to enter the dread presence and to see 
to the heart of the matter. This chapter has been involved in 
all the theories of those who, like His first disciples, have been 
asking about the 'Vhen*' and the ^"where" and to w^hom He 
said, "of that day and of that hour knoweth no man, not even 
the angels of God." Some ask why these things were not 
made known at the time. It is enough here to say that Eeve- 
lation is progressive, if not objectively, yet subjectively, and 
the day will come when these thunderers will be as lullabies 
to quiet the distressing fears and doubts of the children of God, 
and He appeals to him that hath wisdom to consider them. 

The true explanation of this book must have all the effect 
of a new^ Eevelation from heaven, and as far above the other 
Scriptures as the voice of thunder is above the trumpet, or 
the roar of the lion is above the cry of the eagle, or the words 
of Christ above the words of His disciples. From having walked 
among the candlesticks and standing before the throne as a 
slain lamb, and flying mid heaven, as an angel He now stands 
on the earth and the sea, and lifts up His right hand to 
heaven in an oath upon the close of time, showing the rising 
tide of His power. 

This chapter is noticeable for the variety and beauty of its 
dramatic situations. Its orderly place in the structure of the 
book also affords us positive data for understanding its mean- 
ing. We did not see Him ascend in person in the mystic Pente- 
13 



194 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

cost, which we know refers to the great opening of the Eeforma- 
tion, nor did we see Him fly in mid-heaven to announce the 
three-w^oe trumpets, nor do we see Christ descending to hold 
a book, nor stand on the sea and on the earth nor yet hear 
His cry. That is all sym.bol and mystery. It is the truth about 
the future, told in the symbols and forms of the past. Christ 
did actually seal the great miultitude of saints, ourselYCS among 
them, and the Eeformation did put a new restraint upon wick- 
edness, and it did open upon the pit of smoke of the Dark 
Ages to show its inferno, and the civil powers of the world 
did break their allegiance to the locust king, and yet w^e have 
seen none of these things as angels or locusts, etc., but as sym- 
bols and representations of the reality of them. They tell the 
truth; and we are presently to see Christ coming again and 
again, always showing that it is He who is accomplishing these 
great results, but they are not the coming but the comings of 
the Lord. So, also, the open book represents only thait the 
book of God shall be given and understood through His serv- 
ants, but expressed in form as coming from Him and His 
apostles. 

If we will but cease our gazing up into the skies for signs, 
and seek the power and presence of God in our heart and con- 
duct, we should see much more of God. A mere wonder ap- 
pearing in the skies could not change anything. The heaven 
is full of the glory of God now and "day unto day uttereth 
speech" nearly unheard and unheeded. Why should he add 
new wonders? Christ said to Philip, who had asked to see 
the Father, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
There are many of God's true servants who are this moment 
lifting their longing eyes toward Patmos to understand this 
book and to receive its blessings. It is the only book in the 
Bible which promises a distinct blessing on him that reads it, 
and this it does twice. It is the only one that adds a curse 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 195 

to liim that adds to or. takes away from the words of the 
prophecy of this book. It is the only book which is called the 
Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave and commanded 
not to seal up. It is the only book in which the spirit speaks 
in His own person to the believers^ warning them seven times 
to hear what the Spirit sayeth to the churches. It is the only 
book in the Bible that claims to have come from God, given 
to Christ. It twice declares, "These are the true words of 
God." It twice appeals to hini that hath wisdom to consider 
and have understanding of it. It is the only one that so ex- 
cited the desires of an apostle to understand it that he should 
weep much over it when sealed up, and should take and put 
it to his mouth and eat it when given to him opened and should 
offer twice to worship the angel that showed it to him. It is 
the only book in the Bible that tells us that Satan is to be 
bound with a great chain and cast into prison and sealed up for 
a thousand years; and the only one, alas, which professing Chris- 
tians warn us against reading, and many ministers and scholars 
avoid, even though it solemnly says more in its own praise than 
any other book in the Bible. 

To all. who experience a revulsion on reading it, these and 
other like facts ought to be a warning; and those who make a 
by-word of it might well consider the admonitions with which 
it closes. 

And the angel whicli I saw standing upon the sea and upon the 
earth lifted up his right hand to heaven and swear by him that 
liveth forever and ever, w^ho created the heaven and things that 
are therein, and the earth and the things that are therein, and the 
sea and the things that are therein, that there shall be time no 
longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he 
is about to sound, then is finished the good tidings which he declared 
to his servants, the prophets. 



196 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

What need could there be of a special oath upon the close 
of time if that time had already been made known to Daniel, 
as some claim it was? Or how could Christ sit with His dis- 
ciples on the mount of Olives and answer their question about 
the last times and the end of the world, and say it is not known 
to men nor to angels nor even to the Son if Daniel had really 
told the time. Or how could He say to them when, just be- 
fore His ascension they asked Him about the time of His king- 
dom, the very thing which this book treats of, *^^It is not for 
you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath 
kept within His own authority," if it had indeed been made 
known to Daniel, or to any one else, whose writings were ac- 
cessible. 

This is now the place to mention the year, if it is to be men- 
tioned, for that time is sworn to by the uplifted right hand 
of the angel of God, yet it is no more definite than these words 
will bear out, "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel 
when he is about to sound," and this is no more definite than 
the answers given to His disciples. In fact, it sounds very like 
His explanations when He said, "When ye see the fig tree put- 
ting forth her tender branches know ye thereby that summer is 
nigh." It is said by some that the words of Christ, "IsTo man 
knoweth the day, nor the hour," does not say "no man know- 
eth the year." 

Passing by this method of interpretation, it is enough to say 
of this that such intention in His words would imply that the 
year was so well understood that the whole question turns upon 
the day and hour, and yet where have any two of them agreed 
as to any year? How weak and trivial such a method of deal- 
ing with scripture. These trumpets mark the epochs of Chris- 
tian time to be recognized by the changes only as we would see 
a fig tree putting forth its tender branches prophesying the ap- 
proach of summer. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 197 

And the voice which I heard from heaven I hear it again speak- 
ing with me and saying, Go take the book which is open in the hand 
of the angel that standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And 
I went unto the angel saying unto him that he should give me the 
little book, and he sayeth unto me, Take it and eat it up and it shall 
make thy belly bitter but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey, 
and I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and 
it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my 
belly was made bitter. 

If he wept much when he saw the book in seals and no one 
to open it, what must have been the seer's emotions when he 
saw the book now open and himself commanded by a voice from 
heaven to go and take the book from the hand of the angel 
and to eat it. With what emotion he ventured to approach 
the shining seraph, we cannot know. He has heard the voice 
like a lion and the seven thunders explain the little book, but 
he is to eat it, and that is to illustrate the personal appropria- 
tion of it; and so he takes the book out of the angeFs hand, 
as he had seen his Master take it from the Father's hand, and 
eats it. This taking the book and eating it is the third dra- 
matic action and shows the method of the individual's receiv- 
ing and appropriating the Eevelation of Jesus Christ which 
God gave Him to show unto His servants. It is to be eaten 
bite by bite. It is bread from heaven, and the first condition 
of its delightful enjoyment is a strong desire. When the angel 
passed the book to the weeping seer to eat, he told him that 
the book would be sweet to his taste but bitter in his stomach. 
The effect here was entirely personal as to John. It was sweet 
to him to be able to understand the book whose seals were now 
all loosed, but the dark days that must befall the church, the 
great falling away then in progress, was bitter to his reflection. 
The apprehension sweet, the reflection bitter. So was the vis- 
ion of Abraham; when God had promised him his seed should 
bless all nations there was a horrible darkness fell upon him 



198 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

to symbolize the long dark period that must intervene before 
that blessed day could come. 

The difference between John's situation and our own is that 
we stand on the hither side of that dark night and looking to 
the glowing East where a still rising Savior may be seen shed- 
ding increasing light upon our advancing steps, as we are able 
to unfold the stored riches of His.Eevelation. How gloriously 
the light spreads away toward the mountain of the New Jeru- 
salem! 

The great Christian movements of the future will not be 
made up with Revelation left out as hitherto. 

And they say unto me thou must prophesy again over many 
peoples and nations and tongues and kings. 

That is to say, he must prophesy again of all the things about 
the doom of the world, for he is to cover the ground again, 
seven times in all; including these two, the seals and trumpets. 
These do not all cover the whole time, but they all involve new 
matter and present new phases and relations within the time. 

It is like writing history topically without the use of dates. 
If I write the political history of our country from the begin- 
ning to the present, and then the religious history in the same 
way, and then the commercial, and then the history of witch- 
craft and of human slavery, and then of steam and of elec- 
tricity, etc., having no dates, the lines of history would not all 
begin at the same place nor all end at the same place. Witch- 
craft and slavery would end earlier, and steam and electricity 
would start in later, but each line of history involves others so 
long as they continue together. 

So is written the Apocalypse of St. John. The subject mat- 
ter has been as it respects Christ and His apostles in their re- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 199 

lations to the Great Commission considered on its positive side; 
and these facts will be presented in new phases, and new mat- 
ter will be added as the time is again passed over in part or 
in whole as each of the heavenly powers receives separate treat- 
ment. For the heavenly powers are the lines along which the 
subject matter follows. 



200 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTER XI. 

Revelation XI. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

In this chapter we are to view the place and acts of the Holy 
Spirit as presented in the analysis and as in fact set forth in the 
Christian history. 

It was John who recorded Christ's words, "I will pray the 
Father and He shall give yon another comforter, that He may 
be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world 
cannot receive, for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth Him. 
He shall teach you all things — If I go not away the comforter 
will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you, 
and he when he is come will convict the world in respect of sin 
and of righteousness and of judgment/' 

The coming of the Holy Spirit waited the ascension and 
coronation, and we find in this the first of those characteristic 
relations which the Spirit held to the Christ and to the apostles 
and to the church. 

In the first mention, Ch. 1-4, we have the first and only oc- 
currence of the Spirit ever being placed between the Father and 
the Son (called "the seven spirits") and described as being ^^e- 
fore the throne." 

The declared sonship and lordship waited for the coming of 
the Holy Spirit, as advocate to prove the claims of Christ and 
His presence with the church, and Christ's personal absence 
left these standing in order — the Father, the Holy Spirit, and 
the Son. But a change of relation immediately follows, and we 
see the Holy Spirit as associate and advocate of the seven letters, 
saying: "Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 201 

to the churches/^ and as showing the change of relations to 
Christ about his ascension^ and absence and the descent and 
presence of the Spirit there is an exchange of places shown in 
the two groups of letters. See diagram, page 42. We next meet 
the Holy Spirit as seven lamps of fire before the throne, where 
they seem to be blended with the churches in one and the same 
symbol. Ch. 4:5. The church cannot give any light upon the 
throne except by the Holy Spirit, hence the symbol, and finally, 
in Chapter 5 :6, the Holy Spirit is declared to be "the seven 
eyes and seven horns of the Lamb," that is, his wisdom and 
power "sent forth into all the earth." Here again the Spirit 
blends with the church in one and the same symbol, and in 
this case as being Christ's power and wisdom to the world. 
"We have no further direct acts of the Spirit till we come to 
Chapter 7, and there we find the Pentecost and the very acts 
and relations of the Spirit with Christ that characterized that 
event. That is, we have the ascension of Christ bearing the Seal 
of the Living God, which the Father sent down, and here we 
have the sealing of the twelve times twelve thousand, and after 
them a multitude that no man could number. Here the Holy 
Spirit is connected with the Father and the Son, and the saints 
in the manner exactly corresponding to the acts of the Pentecost. 
But the Spirit does not come directly to view again in any of 
the trumpetings till we reach the eleventh chapter, where 
John identifies the Spirit's office in a wider range of 
allusions and connectiens. We easily identify the earlier 
allusions with the beginning by unmistakable relations 
and acts, but the highly pictorial and symbolic acts of Chapter 
7, wherein the Spirit seals the saints, we see the second church 
our Protestant reformation, so that we are prepared here also 
as well as in the seals and trumpets to trace the early, the mid- 
dle and the later state of Christian development through the 



203 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

mediation of the Spirit. The direct treatment of the mission 
of the Holy Spirit in the eleventh chapter involves all his rela- 
tions and making use of the symbols which belong to the return 
from Babylonian captivity, and of the rebuilding of the temple, 
clearly point to the work which the Holy Spirit is to do in re- 
building the church which returns from the captivity of "the 
Great City, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt/' 

But there is another office and another relation of the Holy 
Spirit which receives special characterization in this eleventh 
Chapter. It is his office and relation with the word of God. 

The church would give a very inadequate testimony if it 
did not preach the word. The preaching of the v/ord is repre- 
sented as taking "fire from the altar and casting it out into the 
earth." 

Then fire followed the sounding of the first trumpet, and on 
the sounding of the second trumpet a mountain was on fire. 

The symbol of fire for the word of God is closely united with 
the Holy Spirit. 

These acts and relations of the -Holy Spirit which we have 
been reviewing, in which we see his relations to Christ and to 
the apostles and to the churches, are unerring means of identify- 
ing what John is trying to teach us, that is, that this selfsame 
Spirit is to act in the same offices in raising up the new church 
as he did in the first church, and as the church is to be raised 
up or restored he takes the return of the Jews from Babylonian 
captivity as a form for expressing this revival of the church 
from the dark ages. This fact prepares us to receive those al- 
lusions to the Spirit as he was connected with the rebuilding 
of Jerusalem. 

This increases the certainty that the Holy Spirit is the central 
thought and subject of discourse and that the re-establishment 
of the church was in mind. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 203 

I know of no writer who lias discerned bnt Adolpli Harnack, 
who has discerned that John has a second church in mind. It 
is with a view to this second church that John, the last survivino- 
apostle, holds out to the perishing churches that another church 
shall rise, and hence he is told to rise and take a measuring rod 
and measure for a new temple. 

TVe are now to look upon the times of the Eeformation and 
the conditions out of which it came and how the residt was 
effected. It is to be noted that since the fortunes of the 
little book have been so fully given in the tenth chapter we 
are to have a separate account of the Old and ^ew Testa- 
ments, which have always been regarded as standing apart in 
some way from the Eevelation of St. John. 

It is remarkable that the Eevelation should receive a sepa- 
rate recognition, as we see it does in the chapter we have just 
reviewed. It is a fact that the Eevelation has always been 
considered as in some way apart from the other Scriptures. 
The council of Laodicea in 360 A. D. denied its right to a 
place in the Holy Scriptures, and Luther's rejection of it at one 
time and its slight esteem with all who regard it- as a sealed 
book, have given it a peculiar relation to the accepted canon. 
This eleventh chapter gives attention to the Scriptures as two 
witnesses, etc. 

These two Testaments are two witnesses, two olive trees, two 
candlesticks, two prophets, two tables of stone, etc. The Old 
and Xew Testaments are divided, not only as historically sep- 
arate, and as being chiefly Jewish and Gentile covenants, but 
by other distinctions the apostle to the Gentiles was at great 
pains to point out. 

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod and one said 
rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and them that 
worship therein. 



204 MYSTE3EIY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

John, who had ah'eady been called upon to take part in the 
drama by receiving the book from the angel's hand and eating 
it, is now called upon to receive a measuring reed and is com- 
manded to rise and measure for the new temple (the chnrch) 
and the altar and the worshipers. He does .not tell us that 
he did so, and we have here no further account of the meas- 
uring till we find the temple finish-ed and opened at the end of 
this chapter. Not only do the giving to him of the measur- 
ing reed and the order to rise and measure strongly imply the 
rebuilding of the church, but it immediately declares that the 
Holy City, the churchy shall be trodden under foot; and after 
the reed has been used we see the new temple, the present 
church, completed and opened. The reed is the word of God 
and John is represented as receiving it. This and his taking 
the little book are the only acts of his recorded in the great 
drama, and they both pertain to his part as a minister of the 
word. He took the book and ate it and now he measures up 
the temple with the word of God. The church and the worship 
and the worshipers are to be measured by the w^ord of God. 

And the court which is without the temple leave without and 
measure it not, for it hath been given unto the nations, and the 
Holy City shall they tread under foot forty and two months. 

The Holy City and the temple are two symbols for the same 
general fact. The shadowgraph which sustains this discourse 
is Israel's Babylonian captivity and the treading down of Jeru- 
salem by the Gentiles, and the return from captivity and re- 
building of the temple and city. The captivity of the church 
to Spiritual Babylon is represented as returning, and John is 
commanded to measure for its rebuilding and the word of 
God is the measuring reed. But he is not to measure those 
without, for they are the enemy that trod the city under foot. 
As the temple had an outer court where all persons might go, 



OiR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 205 

called "the court of the Gentiles/' so here the symbol refers 
to the Gentile power or worldlings that trod down the church 
of God, and they are not to be measured in with the new 
church of God. These are not sealed on the forehead, are not 
recorded nor numbered, nor tabernacled, nor led to the foun- 
tains of water, etc., but are worldlings who have trodden down 
the church, the Holy City, forty and two months, and who 
are to be trodden down themselves in the wine-press of God's 
wrath (xiv, 20). 

The church that John is commanded to build is the Eefor- 
mation or great revival from the Dark Ages, which is now still 
in process at this hour. John now turns aside to tell us about 
the reed which is to measure the new temple, giving a num- 
ber of symbols which end with showing the two Testaments 
under the symbol of the two tables of the law in the ark when 
the temple is opened in the last trumpet. Under the impres- 
sion that John was only dreaming and that the Holy Spirit 
had no real part in this Eevelation and that it is not a Revela- 
tion from God, this temple has been taken as the literal Jewish 
temple at Jerusalem, contrary to the usage and genius of this 
book, and has, by some of the greatest scholars of Christendom, 
been used to prove the date of its writing as having taken place 
while that temple was yet standing. The supposition is 
wholly foreign to sound exegesis. More absurdities have arisen 
from this than from any other part of the book, as must appear 
clearer as we proceed. 

And I will give unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy 
a thousand two hundred and three score days clothed in sackcloth. 

The efforts to make these two witnesses personalities are 
among those speculations now to pass away. The time these 
witnesses are said to prophesy and their being clothed in sack- 
cloth, precludes the possibility of their being persons, besides 



206 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

destroying the proportions of the story and the fact of its 
not dealing with personalities in any part. 

The forty-two months and the thousand two hundred and 
three score days are not given here as measures of chronolog- 
ical time, but are the symbols of prophetic times which gave 
the limits to the return from captivity and the rebuilding of 
the temple at the Jews' return from Babylon. These allusions 
to time belong to the shadowgraph on which the story of the 
then future was written, and our literalists and our scholars have 
both fallen to reading the shadow and not the substance, one 
finding the Jews' temple and the other the Jews' return to the 
temple in this text, in which they both fell perpendicularly 
out of the allegory. The time measure of this book is 
by Seals and Trumpets, and all other measures belong 
to the cryptogram and are only shadows on which the truth 
about the future is expressed. To "prophesy in sackcloth" is 
equal to saying they do not outwardly prophesy at all, and this 
is expressed when a moment later we find they are dead, having 
been killed by the beast. The active form being used as though 
they were prophesying will have attention as we proceed, where 
we find a strange reversal in the active and passive uses in 
repeated instances. To be clothed in sackcloth implies they 
are dead, and the word of God was dead to doing any good 
so long as it was withheld from the people in a dead language 
under the pretended sanctity that it was too sacred to be put 
into the living tongue of the people. 

These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing 
before the Lord of the earth. 

Here the Old Testament imagery is used (see Zech. iv) in 
the rebuilding of the city and the temple on the return from 
captivity in Babylon. "It shall be built with the plummet in 
the hand of Zerubbabel," but that it shall not be accomplished 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 207 

by the cunning hand of the carpenters^ "not by might nor by 
power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 

To illustrate this truth to the prophet Zechariah the Lord 
shows him in vision two olive trees that pour their oil through 
two golden pipes into the lamps. By this imagery the Lord 
would teach the prophet that the return from captivity and 
the rebuilding of the trodden-down city and temple were to 
be accomplished by the Spirit of the Lord through Zerubbabel 
and his helpers. He tells us that the restoration was decreed 
by the word of God, and this word is explained as "the two 
annointed ones that stand before the Lord of all the earth." 

A more beautiful and fitting cryptograph could not be imag- 
ined than this. As Zechariah was praying for the return to 
Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Holy City and the temple 
he sees the Spirit of God and the word of God in relations to 
each other as candlesticks with seven burners and the oil from 
two olive trees supplying them with oil. The imagery rests 
upon the sanctuary service. The olive trees supply the oil for 
the lamps which receive it and the oil burning gives the light, 
thus are united to each other in Old Testament symbols the 
word. of God, the sanctuary of God, and the Spirit of God, 
exactly as we have them in this book, as shown in the open- 
ing of this chapter. The very choosing of this shadowgraph 
shows us that this chapter is dealing with the Eeformation, or 
revival of the church. The blending of the Spirit with the 
churches and the word on that pattern is perfect, not only in 
preserving the same relations we have already noticed in the 
earlier chapters of the book, but matches the facts about the 
new building of the church, the second church, as perfectly as 
the Day of Pentecost did in the Seals and Trumpets. That 
Pentecost as shown is in fact the mystic declaration of the 
new church. Christ's triumph was shown in the Seals, but 
nothing was there said either about the church or the word 



;^08 MYSTERY OiF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

going down or coming np. ISTeitlier did the trumpets mak'-i 
any mention of the ehnrch or the Bible, but only that the 
lights of heaven went out; but now the word and in the next 
chapter the church are both seen to have been buried; their 
restoration is involved in this account of the Holy Spirit and 
the story is laid upon the symbols that relate to the restora- 
tion of Israel from Babylonian captivity, which accounts foj 
the confusion hitherto of the shadow with the substance. 

And if any man desire to hurt them fire proceedeth out of their 
mouth and devoureth their enemies and if any desire to hurt them 
in this manner must he be killed. 

Their "mouth'^ is singular for plural and so is "their body/' 
which is not very grammatical, but very good sense, for these 
two witnesses are one word of God. It is one sword with two 
edges that comes out of His mouth, one book written within 
and without, one law written on two tables, etc. Just so we 
had the voice of the trumpet of the three angels — trumpet 
singular — viii, 13. Fire, as already explained, is the word of 
God considered more on its judgment side, and here it is said to 
come out of the mouth of these two witnesses to punish them 
that would hurt them. Fire coming out of the mouth of wit- 
nesses is only another way of expressing the casting out of fire 
with a censer or as fire mingling with blood when the first 
Trumpeter sotinds. It means the word of God condemns those 
who suppress or pervert it. Punishment is decreed for all who 
hurt the word of God. This killing or devouring of those who 
would hurt the witnesses is not a bodily but a spiritual killing 
and is like the curse pronounced upon whomsoever shall add 
to or take away from the word of the prophecy of this book. It 
has blessings for those who read it and eat it, but curses for 
those who pervert it. 

These have the power to shut the heaven that it rain not during 



on, THE RIVEN VEIL. 209 

the days of their prophecy, and they have power over the waters to 
turn them to blood and to smite the earth with every plague as often 
as they shall desire. 

Their having power to shut the heaven and smite the earth 
as often as they desire would seem to make them active in doing 
what merely results from their absence or death or being mum- 
mified in sackcloth^ etc. So it was in the absence of Elijah 
from Israel; there was no rain; the heaven was shut up^ and 
he was concealed, but the king accused him of troubling Israel, 
though he was only absent and hidden, but there was no rain 
nor word from God in his absence. This manner of speaking 
of it comes from the world point of view here taken, as we 
shall see in a moment. In the case of the locusts it is said, 
"It was given them that they should not kill them, etc.," mean- 
ing it was not given to them to kill, etc. So here also it says, 
"I will give to my two witnesses and they shall prophesy in 
sackcloth," meaning that they shall be concealed and silent, 
but not dead, and that fire shall proceed out of their mouth, not 
while they are in sackcloth, but they have this power and they 
punish their enemies, as we find they do a little later, when 
they come out of their grave clothes and ascend before the 
eyes of their affrighted enemies (xi, 11). 

He is telling us that, though they are for a time in sack- 
cloth, as the heavens are in mourning without light, and as 
the church is trodden to the earth under the feet of the wicked, 
they still have this great power which God has given them, 
and they will exert it again. These are powers that belong to 
the word of God. Great dearth of light and knowledge fol- 
lowed the cloaking of the Bible from the people, and it was like 
fire to punish those who tried to suppress it when it rose from 
its long imprisonment. It shared the fate of all the heavenly 
powers in the dark time referred to in the symbol of the black 
horse and the great eclipse of the sun, moon and stars and the 
14 



210 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Holy City in tie dust under alien heels. They "turned the 
waters into blood," because there was no word of God to restrain 
the wicked, so the earth is liable to every plague for want of its 
preserving and purifying power, and those judgments befell 
them that we have seen in the fifth and sixth trumpets. What 
results from their mere absence is spoken of as coming from 
their active agency. 

And when they shall have finished their testimony the beast that 
Cometh out of the abyss shall make war with them and overcome 
them and kill them. 

To kill them is to confine them in sackcloth, considered only 
from the world point of view. That is to say, they will have 
finished their testimony when the beast has overcome them 
and killed them. The beast power that has killed the Testa- 
ments, or witnesses, pronounces it a real death, and so long 
as he reigns in supreme darkness their voice is not heard, but 
they are not dead; they are, God knows, only in grave clothes, 
like their Lord, who was killed but rose again. 

And their dead bodies lay in the street of the great city which 
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt where also their Lord was 
crucified. 

The symbolism of place occurs here for the first time, and 
the same care is taken to explain its symbolic use as was taken 
at the first to explain the stars and the candlesticks. The places 
are "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt." 

The "great city" which is mystically called by these aames 
is "Mystery Babylon the Great." Christ was not crucified in 
either of these places, taken literally, nor is His bodily crucifix- 
ion even spoken of here. He could not surely be put to death 
literally in more than one place, but the beast spirit puts Him 
to death in every place and in every time. But here most of 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 211 

all. Mystery Baibylon crucifies Him by professing to exercise 
His authority, by beast power, a far crueler crucifixion than that 
which Herod and Pontius Pilate inflicted at Jerusalem. It is 
from this source the locusts come out, and from wdiich Chris- 
tians have been martyred. Egypt is called a city by its bad 
likeness to Sodom and the great city. Egypt, Sodom and 
Babylon were the three cities where the servants of God had 
lived subject to the wicked, and were persecuted. They were all 
cities or places of exodus and deportation to the people of God. 
Lot was called out of Sodom and Israel out of Egypt and of 
Babylon, hence the point that a city called The Great City, 
out of which God calls His people, should be spiritually called 
the city where these dead witnesses are carried as trophies of 
war, after they have been captured and killed by beast power. 

And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations 
do men look upon their dead bodies three days and a half and suffer 
not their dead bodies to be laid in the tomb. 

These symbols fitly represent the fortunes of the Old and 
New Testaments in the street of that new Rome that rose in 
place of that old one, which went down under the Caesars. Its 
capitol is the "great city," and as it is the seat of universal 
power it is said that "from among the peoples and tribes, 
tongues and nations, do men look upon their dead bodies," as 
trophies exposed to sight in the public streets; so the old Baby- 
lon had robbed and sacked Jerusalem and had taken the vessels 
of the Lord's house and profaned them in their drunken 
revelry till the hand appeared upon the wall writing her doom, 
"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Hpharsin." 

Ah! ha! they could kill them, but they could not bury 
them, and they could not even prolong their seeming death. 
"Three days and a half" is the time of their incarceration in 
sackcloth, and is here spoken of as of dead bodies which are 



212 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

exposed in the streets^ not for a thousand two hundred and 
three score days, which wonld represent ElijaFs absence from 
Israel, but in a symbol that correlates with the time that human 
bodies might lay in the street to be seen, and this shows how 
indifferent this book is to all the theories finely spun about the 
day-for-year hypothesis by which they would have it appear 
that the Lord has named His scheme by years in some occult 
way. "Three days and a half" is another form for expressing 
the twelve hundred and sixty days that they were in sackcloth. 
Here we see from a view of what the enemy is doing the 
same limit upon his authority that we saw from the other side. 
The beast from the pit may kill the two witnesses, but he 
cannot bury them, nor, as we learn a moment later, prevent 
their resurrection and ascension and enthronement in power. 
These are limits upon his power added to those of the fifth 
Trumpet. We do now possess these two Testaments. 

And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them and make 
merry and they shall send gifts one to another because these two 
prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. 

Now they are called "these (my) two prophets." This brings 
to mind at once the feast of Belshazzar and the gayeties of the 
proud city where the vessels of the Lord's house had been 
stored in the treasure-house of the king's gods and had been 
brought forth and exposed to the thousand gay lords who drank 
wine from them when the hand of doom appeared upon the 
wall. Such a doom fell upon that spiritual Babylon when the 
word of God was revived. 

And after three days and a half the breath of life from God 
entered into them and they stood upon their feet and great fear fell 
upon them that beheld them. 

The word for "breath" and "spirit" is the same in G-reek, and 
our revisers did well in giving it as "breath," because it corre- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 213 

lates with- the body or bodies just spoken of as dead and being 
brought to life by the breath entering tbem again. The corre- 
lation of symbols is thus preserved as where it represents them 
as lying three days and a half in the street. "Breath" in this 
case is the symbol for the Spirit, and means that the Bible 
Avas to be translated into the living language of the people, as 
it was in fact. This is given in the symbolism of a resurrec- 
tion, as where God raised Christ from the dead by the Spirit. 
The Spirit of God raises the witnesses and they ascend. Here 
the Spirit begins a new crusade against the enemy, as at the 
Pentecost, and as this belongs to the Eeformation as a mystic 
Pentecost it explains how Christ sealed His servants on the 
forehead. Xot that there was an actual Pentecost at the open- 
ing of the Eeformation, but a Pentecost is ascribed to it in 
form to show its real character, for it was the opening of the 
second church in fact. 

This trembling with fear at their resurrection and ascension 
is like the shaking of the king when he saw the handwriting 
upon the wall and knew that his doom was written in it. Thus 
the captivity of Israel and his return from Babylon continues 
to express the apostasy of the church and its restoration. 

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 
Come up hither, and they went up to heaven in a cloud. 

The two prophets they had killed come to life, and, like their 
Lord, they ascend in a cloud now to torment them again as at 
first. The Old and Xew Testaments having been translated and 
given to the people in their own tongue, a great change came 
over the world. Their happiness and gayeties at the wake of 
these dead bodies, where they indulged mutual congratulations 
in sin, are brought suddenly to an end. These are said to go 
up to heaven in a cloud, whence they were called. The word 
'^^leavem* is used here not to refer to a place of God's abode 



214 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

as if separated from us, but to a condition of His favor not 
bounded by the death hnes. There is no veil between heaven 
and the church in this book. We see all the saints are in 
heaven and have eternal life now. It means that they arise 
to the favor of God and His people. Christ calls them forth 
with a great voice through His servants. No great thing Christ 
does is any the less great or wonderful for being done through 
His saints. The spirit or breath of life entered into them and 
they heard a great voice from heaven saying-, "Come up hither." 
All these symbols illustrate how close these witnesses are 
to Christ by their fortunes being related in the imagery of 
His own death and resurrection and ascension. 

And their enemies beheld them and in that hour there was a 
great earthquake and a tenth part of the city fell, and there were 
killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons, and the rest were 
affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. 

This is the earthquake of the Eeformation that shook down 
so many thrones in Europe and that broke all political bondage 
to Babylon. That earthquake will continue to be felt till 
the last throne is overturned that defies the authority of the 
Almighty. "A tenth part of the city" — that is, spiritual Baby- 
lon — fell. A tenth part does not convey any correct idea of 
quantity or proportion. "Ten" is the symbol for legality and 
law and is founded upon the Ten Commandments and points 
to the nature of the injury inflicted, as a righteous retribu- 
tion or lawful measure from God. It was political or worldly 
power. The marginal reading in the revised version is correct, 
which says "seven thousand names" were killed in the earth- 
quake. N'ames here is used as a symbol for a title or profes- 
sion, as "Thou hast a name to live and are dead," and the beast 
has "names" of blasphemy, etc. When the word of God, which 
teaches that the greater shall be least and that you shall call 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 215 

no man father on the earthy began to be preached again there 
was a great falling off in the vain, swelling titles of ecclesias- 
tical magnates. The mountains are to be leveled and the val- 
leys are to be filled. The word of God makes havoc of all the 
distinctions which brute power had made in the world, having 
for its end and glory on earth the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. 

The power of God is here returning to the world. They 
cease to worship men and titles of pomp, as they did before. 

And the rest were affrighted and gave glory to the God of heaven. 
The second woe is past; behold the third woe cometh quickly. 

All that has occurred since the first woe is to be included 
in this general "woe/'^ the army of horsemen that was to kill 
a third part of men, and the giving of the Revelation as an 
open book, and the resurrection of the two witnesses, the word 
of God, to be used as a measure for measuring the new temple, 
which is to be opened by the sounding of the seventh trumpet. 
That measuring is now going on and must continue till every 
part in it is the same size, as in EzekiaFs vision, till the worship 
is one in kind and till the worshipers are all brought to one 
standard of spiritual excellence. 

THE SEVENTH TRUMPET.— THE THIRD WOE. 
TRIUMPH OF THE HEAVENLY POWERS. 

And the seventh angel sounded and there followed great voices 
in heaven and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the 
kingdom of our Lord and His Christ and He shall reign forever 
and ever. 

The oath of the angel that stood with his right foot on the 
sea and his left upon the earth and lifted his right hand to 
heaven and swear by Him that liveth forever is now come 



216 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

to pass. That oath was that "in the days of the seventh trum- 
pet, when He is about to sound, then is finished the mystery 
of God according to the good tidings which He promised to 
His servants, the prophets/' Christ shall reign a thousand 
years, but this, says He, "shall reign forever and ever." Here 
appears the name of Christ for the first time since we left the 
first chapter. The mystery is ended and He returns in His 
own proper name. He is no longer veiled under impersonal 
names and mystery parts. This also shows us this is the end 
of Revelation, or Trumpet time, beyond which no time is 
reached in this book, all that follows covering the same time 
or parts of the same time. Eternity lies beyond the seventh 
trumpet. Here God finishes all His promises. Here ends that 
contest which was begun in the Garden of Eden. It is the 
time of triumph and of rejoicing. 

And the four and twenty Elders which sit before God on their 
throne fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give 
thee thanks O Lord God the Almighty which art and which wast, 
because thou hast taken thy great power and didst reign. 

In all other places where the Elders appear we have the 
four living creatures also, but here they are missing. The 
nations which they represent no more appear. They have lost 
their distinguishing characteristic and seem no longer to appear 
as world nations, but have become the kingdom of God. The 
praise is given to God only and is like that given in the fourth 
chapter, where Christ is not recognized; but in that praise "the 
four living creatures" took part, but it must be noticed that 
a difference of time is distinctly recognized, for in that praise 
they address the Almighty as "He that Is and Was and Is To 
Come," while here He is addressed as He that Was and Is; 
the futurist is wanting. He has come and is no longer "He 
that is to come," The Elders chant that He has taken His 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 217 

"great power and didst reign." It is to be noticed also tliat 
the word ^'kingdom" appears here again for the first time since 
we left the first chapter, where John says, "I am your brother 
and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience 
of Jesns Christ." Here is now that kingdom which began to 
be preached from the baptism of John and 'which, having been 
so long in tribulation, is now coming to triumph, for Grod has 
taken His great power to Himiself and reigns. 

The church means the elect or called out. Christ called out 
a people from the world that through them He might over- 
come the w^orld and establish His dominion. That church was 
trodden down and the Bible also was overcome and put to 
death, but God raised them up. The Eevelation understood 
will waken the church to undertake her mission of bringing 
the w^orld under obedience to Jesus Christ, and out of her 
own slavery in tribulation and subordination. The church is 
the kingdom in tribulation, while the kingdom is the church 
triumphant on earth. A new light and temper must come 
over Christendom before it can either take or hold a kingdom 
whose king discards brute force either to coerce religion or 
to fetter the mind. 

And the nations were wroth and thy wrath came and the time 
of the dead to be judged and the time to give their reward to thy 
servants and to the saints and to them that fear thy name, the 
small and the great and to destroy them that destroy the earth. 

Again we see the last things, not only the mystery ended, 
but the dead to be judged, both great and small, and the 
righteous to be rewarded. There is a great controversy with 
the nations. It says "their wrath came and thy wrath came." 
The strange divorce between the standards of religious life 
and of a secular and political life shows what a great change 
is yet to be wrought before even Christians will carry into 



218 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

political acts those principles which they profess for their 
guide in personal and domestic and social life. 

The present state of the world defies adequate description. 
The unrest of nations^ the close relations into which they are 
being brought by the new means of communication, the vast 
armaments, the rapid increase of population, the limits of 
new territory, the displacement of labor by the invention of 
machinery, and above all the growth in the demands for per- 
sonal liberty are all so vast, so new and so full of poAver and 
promise that we can only wonder what changes must await the 
near future. Christian humility is still far from the heart of 
this world. To submit to the gentle rule of love is a hard 
lesson, yet to learn, and which the kingdoms of men continue 
to resist in wrath, but God's wrath will teach them something 
they cannot resist. 

And there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven and 
there was seen in His temple the ark of His covenant and there 
followed lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and 
great hail. 

The temple is now built. The reed, like a rod which was 
given to John to measure with, has been used, and the measur- 
ing has gone on till the work is completed and the temple in 
heaven — that is, the new church to which the witnesses 
ascended — is finished. This is that greater house of David 
which God promised He would build. John seems to have 
used the reed, but actually his living brothers now and here- 
after are to do this work. It is built not by might of man, "but 
by My Spirit, saith the Lord." As Zerubbabel, with his 
plummet in hand and assisted by the might and Spirit of 
the Lord when He changed the heart of the monarch of Baby-* 
Ion to permit its rebuilding, so again after the long captivity 
of Spiritual Israel in bondage to beast power God rebuilds the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 219 

Holy City and' the temple, beginning in the sixth trumpet and 
ending with the seventh. John is given a reed like nnto a 
rod and is told to rise and measure the temple, and the altar, 
and the worshipers, and we see the new temple finished with 
shoutings of jov and the judgment has come and the kingdom 
and reward of the saints. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Reed: Measuring rod; the two olive trees; the two candle- 
sticks; the two prophets; the two tables of law; the two testa- 
ments. 

Kingdom: Reign of Christ; marriage supper of the Lamb; first 
resurrection; the New Jerusalem; the millennium. 



220 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTEE XII. 

Revelation XII. 

THE CHURCH. 

And a great sign was seen in heaven, — a woman arrayed with 
the sun, and the moon under her feet; and upon her head a crown 
of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she crieth out travail- 
ing in birth and in pain to be delivered. And there was seen 
another sign in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven 
heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems and his tail 
draweth a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to 
the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman which was about 
to be delivered that when she was delivered he might devour her 
child. And she was delivered of a son, a m.an child who is to rule 
all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up 
unto God and to His throne and the woman fled into the wilderness 
where she hath a place prepared of God that there they may nourish 
her a thousand two hundred and three score days. 

In this chapter we are to view the fortunes of the church. 
The first chnrch born pure and holy from the glorious Pente- 
cost is here presented in its ideal beauty as seen from the 
heavenly point of view. In her is the Christ and the Holy 
Spirit and the apostles and the saints and the martyrs, and in 
her also alas! are the frailties of human nature, the seeds of 
corruption that had already grown so great at the time John 
wrote, as let us witness in his letters. The chapter is divided 
into two parts, giving a double view. The first twelve verses 
give the heavenly view\ 

The woman is viewed in her three relations: 

1. As pure and full of loving pain to multiply herself in 
bringing obedient children to her Lord. 

2. As losing her most faithful children, who chose death 
rather than denial of the faith or a sinful life, and so they 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 221 

are caught up to God or, as regards the manner of their death, 
they were said to be under the altar telling their Lord of their 
injustice. 

3. Her members on earth were corrupted, many of her 
leaders turning back. At Ephesus, where John is believed to 
have labored for awhile, some claimed to be apostles and they 
were proved to be liars. Balaam and Jezebel had already 
gained power in the churches when John wrote, and corruption 
was spreading and deepening. 

These three leading facts about the church are here ex- 
pressed, and also the further fact that the woman who repre- 
sents the church that continued on earth finally fell entirely 
away from her heavenly profession, not so, however; but that 
God still regarded His own people and called them to come out 
of her that they might not partake of her sins. 

It is in this presentation of the church that we first meet 
the Dragon. Herein is seen the great advantage in present- 
ing the church under the symbol of a pure and beautiful 
woman. Both Eve and Mary come to view. Eve with her 
two sons, the murderer and the martyr, and Mary with her 
son, the Savior, fleeing from Herod. Eve, fresh and beautiful 
from the hand of God, last and best made of all His works, 
dwelling in the flov/ers and sunshine of Eden, becomes the mark 
for Satanic malice and cunning, who, in the form of a serpent 
or dragon, lays wait to corrupt her and did corrupt her into 
sin and her first born into a murderer, and for that reason 
John calls Satan a murderer, and because he deceived the 
woman he called him also "a liar from the beginning'^ and "the 
father of lies." 

Now, when the new spiritual creation is begun upon the 
great day of the Lord, the joyful Pentecost at Jerusalem, the 
church is shown as a woman clothed with the sun and with 
twelve stars in her heavenly crown and the moon under her 



222 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

feet, the whole belt of heavenly light, and her heart throbbing 
in joyful agony to bring forth heirs of salvation, who are also 
the church. How glory and suffering here unite! Ah! it is 
the new creation begun. The woman's seed is now to bruise 
the serpent's head. "Behold I create all things new." The 
first born of the flesh was a murderer, but the first born of 
the spirit is a Savior, a life-giver. Satan sought the young 
child's life while yet in Mary's bosom. The very picture of 
Mary and the babe and of Herod seeking His life is the fitting 
pattern that lies directly under this part of the drama. There 
it was the dragon also, for this dragon is pagan Eome, or the 
total of world power, but is described twice by John as the 
Dragon, the Old Serpent called the Devil and Satan, giving 
him four names. 

This presentation of the church clothed with all heavenly 
power brings to view the head of all diabolical power, as if the 
church were the fullness of all spiritual forces. 

The facts and incidents of Herod's seeking the life of Christ 
lie so plainly in sight that many have seen only that, and 
failed to read the lesson written on the pattern; a very com- 
mon error this, to read backward instead of forward — the old 
instead of the new, the shadow for the substance. It is the 
old battle again under new conditions — Satan now in pos- 
session of the Eoman world and lying in wait as a serpent to 
devour or to destroy the new spiritual seed of the church. 
That her seed should be called "a Son," a "man child," is 
clearly to connect it with the promise that "the woman's seed" 
should "bruise the serpent's head." It is to be accomplished 
through the church. This man child is in verse 17 explained 
to be her "seed which keep the commandments of God and 
hold the testimony of Jesus," leaving no doubt of the intent 
of the symbol to mean the church. The mother and child 
are both the church, the child becoming mother. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 223 

The allegory wliicli begins by showing the woman and the 
serpent in direct antagonism soon turns to a general conflict 
in which Christ and His saints on the one side and Satan 
and his angels on the other are engaged. Here is the full 
battle array with the heads of the hostile armies aligned. 

This sign is seen in heayen — that is, in the field of vision 
only, the church and heaven being one and inseparable in 
John's way of speaking. As already shown, Christ having re- 
moved the veil, heaven includes all that was included in both the 
sanctuary and the Holy of Holies, and it was in this corre- 
spondent position in the primitive world that Satan came to 
Eve to tempt her in the garden East in Eden, for there was 
no well-marked division between Eden and the garden East. 

Another sign in heaven is seen; a great red dragon, whose 
ten horns show that he claims to govern as against the ten 
laws of Moses, and his seven crowned heads brazenly assert 
his pretense to be religious. He claims the kingdoms of the 
world and it is against that claim that it is said "the woman's 
seed is to rule the nations with a rod of iron." There is no 
place in this story where the church is so divorced from Christ 
as that Christ will bruise the serpent's head apart from her 
agency. But a division is made in the church, for we see 
her seed or children are caught up to God and to His throne, 
and a part are dragged down as stars from heaven that is cor- 
rupted from the faith, so that at the same time the church is 
bringing forth seed to her Lord and is loosing by martyrdoms 
and by apostasy and the church itself declining in glory. 

The dragon, who is identified as he who tempted and cor- 
rupted Eve, draws away by his tail as the serpent. He brings 
down the leaders, called stars, from their profession, from the 
church; but the paragraph closes with saying that the woman 
was caught away into the wilderness where John is afterward 
taken in the Spirit to see her, where he finds her "a drunken 



224 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

harlot" sitting on "a scarlet-colored beast." A seeming incon- 
gruity is noticed in the words "where she hath a place prepared 
of God that there they might nourish her a thousand two hun- 
dred and three score days." That is to say, God has not 
relinquished all claims, as that there will not again be a church 
on earth, for it will return. This is in keeping with the ex- 
pression in the foregoing chapter, where it is said, "I will give 
unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy clothed in sack- 
cloth a thousand and two hundred and three score days." 
During this same period, or at least in this same condition, 
they are said to have been killed and their "dead bodies" were 
carried into the great city, where the wicked rejoiced over 
them as dead and " harmless against sin, but were not really 
dead. The wilderness and the city seem very opposite, and yet 
they express in two ways the same fact. The woman is to be 
shown under changed and fallen conditions as in a wilderness, 
but will change back to the symbols of a city when recovered 
and perfected as "The N"ew Jerusalem." 

Both these allusions to God's care and presence in adversity 
and death seem to rest upon the fact that Christ in the hands 
of His foes and slain and regarded as dead, came back from 
a tomb guarded by His enemies, the world power. Christ was 
not buried in the ordinary way and His despairing cry "Why 
hast thou forsaken Me?" was a human cry, for God was with 
Him when He was out of human sight and brought Him forth 
again, and just so in that very likeness does He bring back 
His two witnesses and they ascend like their Lord and the 
church goes down like a trodden -down city, or into the wilder- 
ness, and we shall see it come forth and we shall see it rise 
and ascend in that likeness. 

And there was war in heaven. — Michael and his angels going 
forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his 
angels; and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 225 

more in heaven. And the great dragcn was cast dov/n, the old ser- 
pent, he that is called Satan and the Devil, the deceiver of the 
whole world, he was cast down to the earth and his angels were 
cast down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven saying. 
Now is come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our 
God and the authority of his Christ for the accuser of our 
brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and 
night and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and 
because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their 
life even unto death. Therefore rejoice O heavens and ye that 
tabernacle in them. Woe for the earth and the sea because the 
Devil is gone down to you having great wrath, knowing that he hath 
but a short time. 

Here, in changed symbols, we meet exactly the same fact 
given in the second trumpet — that is, Eome going down as a 
mountain on fire into the sea — one viewing the conflict of 
powers in the abstract, and the other the conflict as between the 
participants in the struggle where all the powers are engaged. 
A division occurs here in the point of view taken, so that what 
follows from this to the close of the chapter is the world view. 
The foregoing is the heavenly aspect of the case, what follows is 
the worldly. We have already noticed these double points of 
view in the two visions of Xebuchadnezzar and Daniel, and we 
saw the same in the preceding chapter where the two witnesses 
in the heavenly view appeared as God's witnesses in sackcloth, 
and in the world view as two dead witnesses and prisoners of 
the beast. This duality and conflict is everywhere present and 
guides us the more safely to an understanding of its intent. 

Michael, who was the guardian angel to Israel in the time 
of her conflict with the pagan powers, is here used to denote 
Christ. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the Eoot of David and 
now the angel Michael are used to describe the parts which He 
bears in His work. He is to conquer with His saints, who are 
also called "the woman's seed," who are to "rule the world 
15 



226 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

with a rod of iron." It is remarkable that^ while John has 
no shading or gradation in his characters as to their essentially 
opposite natures, no one can imagine a more beautiful identifi- 
cation of the parts which the different actors perform on their 
respective and opposing sides than is shown in this book. Here 
is the general conflict of the saints against the wicked. It is 
in the leadership of the dragon that he describes him as "the 
Old Serpent called the Devil and Satan" and as "the deceiver 
of the whole world/^ and the wicked are "his angels." This is 
so like His teaching about Satan and his children in His gospel 
as to be at once recognized as the work of St. John. 

The result of this conflict is described as the dragon being 
"cast down out of heaven and his angels with him," and that 
their place was found no more and that there was great rejoic- 
ing in heaven at his fall. This refers to the overthrow of the 
pagan Eoman government (not simply as we view it historically, 
but in the deeper results of the overthrow of all brute dominion 
on the earth, which is here viewed as its sequence). But we 
at once recognize an awfulness of aspect as to the description 
by allusions that seem to rise above even so great an event. 
This is not the only case in which the imagery upon the mind 
seems mightier than the interpretation we are giving. This is 
owing to the fact that the pattern upon which it is laid gives 
its own coloring to the lesson. It is this very method of raising 
and coloring that has given to Homer and others that strange 
fascination that has given such lasting literary eminence. The 
imagery misleads the thought of the Western reader by its 
boldness. 

In the eleventh chapter we felt the strong intrusive likeness 
of Elijah's absence from Israel, and the great dearth, and all 
the painful and tragic circumstances of the case flashed across 
the mind, and in their electric flash we saw the really greater 
lesson of the spiritual dearth in the world while the two wit- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 227 

nesses were both absent like Elijah and silent in sackcloth. The 
war between Michael and the dragon seems to be laid npon 
the event spoken of by both Jude and by Peter concerning 
the angels that kept not their first estate, hence we experience 
an aspect of awfulness in reading of this battle that brings 
those awful Scriptures to mind. Milton's descriptions of fallen 
angels also come to mind, for here he found that ideal. 
. Whatever may be our opinion as to the doctrine of the 
fallen angels it is easy to see that upon its shadow John has laid 
the story of the conflict of Christianity with pagan Eome. 

Christ had said to His disciples, "I saw Satan as lightning 
fall from heaven." Whither this was founded upon some greM 
fact, believed among the Jews, we may not know, but Christ 
spoke with prophetic foreview and may have alluded to this 
very fact. Paul also said to the saints at Eome, "Satan shall 
shortly be bruised under your feet.'' It must in the first place 
be borne in mind that the conflict between evil and good being 
always essentially the same, all the phenomena arising out of 
it must, in the na.ture of things, be analogous. It is the usage 
of John's Apocalypse to ^speak in this manner of Satan and 
his angels. At Philadelphia was a synagogue of Satan, and at 
Pergamos a Satan's throne, and at Thyatira some had learned 
the deep things of Satan, and at Smyrna the Devil is about 
to cast some of you into prison — that is, through his angels, 
the brutish unbelievers. The Devil operates and holds power 
through his servants just as Christ does through His saints. But 
it must not be taken that the kingdom is come in its entirety 
as an actual fact at the fall of pagan Kome, as would seem 
to be here announced, as the great chorus breaks out in heaven, 
saying, "The kingdom has come," but potentially, the unit of 
world power is broken and the saints of the Most High shall 
destroy to the end." All these great oratorios are subject to 
the rule of psalmody, for there is no chronology in songs, and 



228 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

this book takes the same poetic license in its songs that we do 
when we sing. 

The saints are said to overcome Satan. It is in this way 
that ^^the woman's seed" overcomes to "rule with a rod of 
iron." The closeness of relation of Christ and His saints is per- 
fect. They are doing what He is said to do, and they do it 
with "the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony." This 
shows also that the conflict which seems to be in heaven is in 
fact here on the earth. The dragon accused the saints before 
God "day and night." There is no day or night in the eternal 
world, so it was in this world all this was done, and it was 
done before God; for the saints stand before God all the 
time. They have eternal life and are in heaven now. It was 
in this struggle "they loved not their lives unto death," but 
they conquered dying, and so the church parted in three direc- 
tions. Some of her members were martyred and some seduced 
from their profession and some continued on in succession, 
corrupting as they went, till they lost all heavenly power and 
light. At this casting down of the world powers a great ex- 
clamation goes up, "Eejoice heavens and ye that tabernacle 
in them." I substitute the marginal reading "tabernacle" 
rather than "dwell," as it is in keeping with the sense, and shows 
that the contest was here on earth as tenting and transient, 
not dwelling on the earth as the worldly do. That this fall of 
Satan is not his final overthrow is clearly expressed in the words 
"Woe to the earth and the sea because the Devil is gone down 
to you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short 
time." The first great battle is won. 

We see in this expression a perfect preface to the matter of 
the fifth trumpet where in the symbol of a fallen angel, or a 
beast, he opens the pit of the abyss and lets out his locusts 
and in so doing visits the first of the three great woes upon 
"them that dwell upon the earth," and it is there he is called 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 229 

the king of the locusts and the destroyer by his names in both 
Greek and Hebrew tongues. It is striking to notice how per- 
fect the method of relating the subordinate agencies on both 
sides to their chiefs. Any method that would eliminate the 
personality of the Devil would also eliminate God from this 
wondrous story. Their titles and the representatives on both 
sides are given with equal care, and even the woman who is 
the mother of this heavenly progeny is travestied, as we shall 
presently see, by the drunken mother of harlots. We have 
now seen the fortunes of the church told from the ideal, the 
heavenly side. It is to be noted that while the world powers 
came first in the seals and trumpets series, it is reversed in 
the account of the two witnesses and in that of the church 
and also in both the great series to presently follow, in all 
which the heavenly side is given first. 

We are now to read the fortunes of the church told from 
the worldly aspects of the case, and it will read much like a 
reiteration of what we have just read, and this has greatly 
troubled and misled the commentators. 

And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth 
he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child and 
there was given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle 
that she might fly into the wilderness into her place where she Is 
nourished for a time and times and a half time from the face of the 
serpent; and the serpent cast out of his mouth after the woman 
water as a river that he might cause her to be carried away by the 
stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her 
mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his 
mouth. And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman and went 
away to make war with the rest of her seed which keep the com- 
mandments of God and the testimony of Jesus. 

In all the acts of the dragon there is the strong appearance 
of his being acted upon from behind. Even as Christ is the 
Michael of God^ so is the pagan world that persecuted the woman 



230 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the representative of the Devil, and his defeat in tlie field of 
battle is in the earth, for he persecutes the woman and sends 
a flood after her to carry her away, and when she has found 
shelter from his wrath he still follows up her seed "that keep 
the commandments" and persecutes them. But here is another 
strange division between the woman and her seed that the 
dragon no longer persecutes her but "goes away to make war 
on her seed," those who continued to be faithful like the few 
names at Sardis who had not defiled their garments and those 
who were caught up to God, etc. 

The church grew so bad that some would no longer go with 
her and it was these that the Old Serpent continued to follow 
up. In the foregoing paragraph it was "a place prepared of 
God" but now it is "her place," showing the point of view as 
the worldly. Now there was no place the woman could hide 
that the serpent could not reach her, so, as hitherto, we are 
to see conditions and relations and not places. The wilderness 
therefore signifies worldliness and when the woman, that is, 
the visible church on earth, became corrupt, the serpent had 
no further occasion to persecute her. This fact is explained 
by the woman's doing three bad things: 

1. She "took the wings of the great eagle." The eagle was 
the royal ensign of Eome. She was carried away on the wings 
of the worldly, that is, she became like other people and the 
enmity was thus removed. 

2. She accepted help from the earth. "The earth helped 
the woman." That is a great coming down from that first beau- 
tiful woman clothed in all the lights of heaven as at the be- 
ginning. It is said that when the serpenf sent out a flood (of 
his fallen angels) after her that the earth opened its mouth 
and swallowed up the river. When the worldly persecuting 
powers found her become worldly there was no longer anything 
in her but form and name; their hatred abated and they were 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 231 

rather attracted with her religion, and the sinful alliance became 
finally complete. She no longer tormented them that dwell 
upon the earth as the two witnesses had done before they were 
suppressed. Her glory had fled. She had found "her place.'' 

3. She fled into the wilderness. She did this of her own 
accord; but in the symbol of the Holy City it is represented 
that she was trodden under the feet of the nations, two phases 
of the one general fact, and so all the phases of the rise, the 
persecution and fall of the church of Christ are here represented. 

The stealth and cunning of Satan are well illustrated. His 
assumption of power in ten horns and of religion in seven heads 
drawing down the leaders of the church with his tail like a 
serpent, or like Herod conspiring for the young child's life, and 
his anger and warfare like the persecution of the Neros, his 
double nature as serpent and lizard or dragon, etc. It seems 
a paradox that the pagan power should both persecute the woman 
and that he should lend her his wings, and yet this is just the 
fact, for the once pure church became so corrupted and the 
empire became so infused with the truth that it accepted the 
religion of Christ in a perverted form after it had gone on de- 
caying for two hundred years after John wrote from Patmos. 

The "time times and a half time" is another way of express- 
ing the same fact as that expressed by the "three days and a 
half" and the "twelve hundred and sixty days" and the "forty- 
two months." That is, that there is distinctly a world time 
in which the two witnesses are in sackcloth and the church is 
trodden down, or in the wilderness, and that the beasts shall 
reign. This time has already been measured by the trumpets 
which have no chronological key. 

Early in the fourth century Constantine, the Emperor of 
Eome, had professed the religion of Christ and claimed to have 
seen the cross of sacrifice and love transformed into a great 
crucifix in the heavens, tokening him to hold and to wield the 



232 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

scepter of brute power over the world in the name of Christ. 
Eome had become Christian and the Church had become Eoman. 
The leaders in the church, who had once been humble men, 
had grown to be great ecclesiastical magnates, and now rejoiced, 
saying, "We have gained the emperor," but alas, they had lost 
Christ, as always since, when the church has gained and exer- 
cised worldly power. Henceforth the streams become one and 
persecution is directed now by both the church and State against 
the remnant who still held to the primitive faith, and the 
apostate absconding woman, retaining only her profession with- 
out the life of Christ, became the greatest of persecuting powers. 
We have now followed the story of the future ages along 
the lines as they stand related to Christ as Seals opener, and 
the apostles as Trumpeters, and the Holy Spirit as "the breath 
of God" bringing to life the two witnesses, and directing the 
building of the new temple the church, and the church filled 
with the light of God crying to bring forth spiritual children 
like a woman in travail, then corrupt and apostate. There is 
a correlation of conditions along these four lines to be noted: 

1. The white horse and the beautiful woman. 

2. The red horse and the first trumpet, the war upon the 
two witnesses and the war with the dragon. 

3. The black horse, the eclipse of the sun, moon and stars, 
the famine, etc., while the two witnesses were in sackcloth and 
the Holy City trodden down, the woman in the wilderness. 

4. The pale horse, the sixth Seal, the kingdom of the world 

destroyed. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Man Child: Y/oman's seed; them that keep the commands of 
God and hold the testimony of Jesus; souls under the altar; those 
caught up to God and to His throne; virgins on Mount Zion. 

Dragon: The serpent, called the Devil and Satan; deceiver of 
the whole earth; accuser of the saints; beast; false prophet; 
harlot; mystery Babylon, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 233 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Revelation XIII. 

ORIGIN AND SUCCESSION OF BEAST POWER. 

The thirteenth chapter is an answer to the first in giving 
the titles and succession of beast power as that one gave the 
titles and succession of divine power. 

And he stood upon the sand of the sea. 

This is a great improvement over the common version which 
reads, "and I stood upon the sand of the sea/' thus making 
St. John stand in the place of the dragon. This illnstrates 
again the facility with which references are made to places as 
sea, earth and sand, etc., as signifying relations only. The 
dragon is about to install a successor and he is to come up out 
of the sea, from among the people, just as Daniel had seen the 
beasts come forth; and this is that same monster he saw, and 
it comes out of the sea, the troubled sea of humanity. It was 
here the dragon, the Roman Empire, went down, the sea, the 
people. The Roman Empire, or Dragon, is the successor and 
inheritor of all world power, of all the fallen empires from 
Babylon down, and represents their totality in opposition to the 
total of heavenly power. 

And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea having seven heads 
and ten horns and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads 
names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a 
leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear and his mouth as the 
mouth of a lion. 

We have here the beast of the fifth trumpet w^ho is there 
called a "fallen star," and "the angel of the pit of the abyss," 



234 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

and "the king of the locusts," and "Abaddon and Apollyon."^ 
He is said, in the eleventh chapter, to be "the beast that 
Cometh np ont of the pit" to make war upon the two wit- 
nesses and to overcome them. In the fifth trumpet he is said 
to have been given a key showing his subordination and service 
to Satan or the Dragon, and it is here explained that he is 
successor to the anthority and power of the Dragon. Wear- 
ing crowns or diadems on his horns instead of on his heads 
gives him three more diadems than the Dragon. He is spotted, 
showing his mixed or double nature and office. Coming out 
of the sea in which Christianity and paganism went down we 
should expect a spotted or mongrel thing the same as we saw 
at the opening of the pit of the abyss in the characteristics of 
the locusts. His ten horns profess and proclaim his" title to 
rule, and his seven heads signify his claim to religion same as 
the Dragon. He assumes heavenly symbols transforming him- 
"self into an angel of light. His feet are like the feet of a 
bear that is ambling about and unlike a calf which walks 
straight forward under the yoke. 

This beast made his first emprise upon our scene by a mock 
Pentecost. In this way he pretends to religion and acts that 
part which is a parody on the Pentecost of Christ. He is the 
man of sin against the man of righteousness. He is the anti- 
christ. Every beastly person is an antichrist in the true sense 
to the extent of his power. The Dragon is antichrist and the 
man of sin, and so is his successor, and so is that other beast 
yet to appear, and so the harlot, and wherever a Satan's seat 
is or an opposer of Christ there is antichrist, servant of Satanic 
power. 

And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten to 
death and his death stroke was healed. 

The beast here acts a part coarsely imitating the death of 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 236 

Christ. He suffers death in one of his heads and it revives 
and lives again. This is a leading act in that great counter- 
plot and simulation in which Satan would appear as an angel 
of light. The beast suffers a death and a resurrection and an 
ascension to sit on the dragon's throne who gives him all au- 
thority and power. Out of that sea of pagan Eome that went 
down, there came another Eome that held and exercised the 
same power as the first and added to it the devilish pretense 
of being Christian. 

The beast has seven heads, that is, seven forms of govern- 
ment, as we shall presently see all expressions of beast power. 
Beginning with the Eoman power there was first the kingly 
head of Eomulus and his successors, then the Consular, then 
the MiKtary, then the Tribunes, the Decemvirs, the Trium- 
virate, the Imperial and the Papal. It is not necessary to the 
purpose of this truth that there should have been numerally 
just seven heads, for in every use of seven in the book the 
symbol use is primary and the units value secondary. The 
seven trumpets contained nine parts acted and so we will find 
the seven bowls with nine actors. So also the Seals and the 
Evangels have supplemental parts acted, etc. The purpose here 
is to clearly identify the nature of that great wicked power 
which falsely claimed to represent Christianity. With this pur- 
pose in view all the parts of the redemptive scheme might be 
represented as being mocked in a tragic simulation by the beast 
without their actual occurrence, as all that would be done 
in such case by beast power would be a mock, representing as 
formal what might have been essential only, for the opposition 
is essential and real, a counterfeit in all its parts. But it is 
true both in fact and in form that one of the heads of the 
beast, that is, one of the forms of government, under which 
Eome existed, did expire and was revived. The imperial form 
of the Eoman government expired or was put to death by the 



236 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

order of Odoacer and was revived in the person and headship 
of Charlemagne. This is the death and coming to life of one 
of his heads, and it was that head or form under which John 
lived and wrote. 

And the whole earth wondered after the beast and they wor- 
shiped the beast saying, Who is like unto the beast and who is 
able to make war with him? 

His worshipers ascribe supreme power to him. He repre- 
sents all secular and all spiritual power and authority. The 
coarse, selfish, unconverted heart has no truer picture drawn 
than this. All who are brutish w^orship brute power. It is 
the exercise of brute power instead of divine love over the heart 
that this story is all about. These brutish people wonder, and 
admire, and follow after beast power. It is their religion. 

And they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority 
to the beast. 

"These are they that dwell on the earth." The word "dwell" 
here (ketoikeo) means rather to be rooted in the earth, implying 
earthiness of soul. This most unthinking and unreasonable 
worship is the kind of religion that comes from such. They 
praise both the Dragon, who gives away the power, and the 
beast, who receives it. There are congratulations all around. 
The groveling and superstitious mitst lionize something or 
somebody and it does not make much difference who or what, 
so long as it holds beast power. 

And they worshiped the beast, saying. Who is like unto the 
beast and who is able to war with him? And there was given to 
him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and there was 
given to him authority to continue forty-two months. 

The beast continues to receive endowments, the parody and 
i>ock of those the Father gave to the Christ. The beast has 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 237 

a great loud mouth, both for professing great things and for 
speaking blasphemies against God and against the servants 
of God whom he so much hates. He has power "to continue 
forty-two months/^ This is the time given in which the Holy 
City shall be trodden under foot (xi, 2). Here we have an- 
other of those limits upon his power, a limit of time. It is 
also a limit on the suffering of the heavenly powers. The 
temple in ruins and the two witnesses in sackcloth, and the 
woman in the wilderness, were all limits upon the time when 
the heavenly cause should suffer as well as limits upon the 
duration of the beast power, and they are coequal. 

And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God to blas- 
pheme His name and His tabernacle, even them that dwell in 
heaven. 

"Them that tabernacle in heaven^' is the better rendering 
and is the opposite of "them that dwell on the earth," for the 
wicked "dwell" but the saints only "tabernacle,"- the church 
and heaven being annexed and one as already shown. The 
Dragon accused them day and night and the beast follows them 
in the same way, abusing and persecuting the saints, pretend- 
ing to act as God while warring against Him. But we recog- 
nize the great change that has come over the world, for it 
was the Dragon that persecuted the first church, while this 
beast and his successor persecutes thet second. 

This brings us again into times and conditions that pertain 
to the Eeformation. It is the tabernacle to be set up again, 
the temple rebuilded, the church called out of spiritual Baby- 
lon as at first it was called out of the world. These are dif- 
ferent symbols for one and the same fact. 

And it was given to him to make war with the saints, and to 
overcome them, and there was given unto him authority over every 
tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation, and all that dwell upon 



238 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been 
written in the hock of life of the Lamb that hath been slain from 
the foundation of the world. 

We now see exactly what kind of people are meant by tribes, 
peoples, tongues and nations, the worldly and unsaved as opposed 
to the saints. The spotted beast succeeds to both the power 
and the wicked acts of the Dragon making "war upon the 
saints.'^ He overcomes them. But there is a limit to his wor- 
ship. Only those worship him "whos^ name hath not been 
written in the Lamb's book of life," the worldly worshipers of 
beast power. 

The beast is shown again to be a creature of time, but Christ, 
the Lamb, hath been slain from the foundation of the world. 
The contrast is very striking between having the "name writ- 
ten in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain from 
the foundation of the world" and to belong to a beast who 
has but a short time, but "forty-two months." 

If any man hath an ear to hear let him hear. If any man is for 
captivity into captivity he goeth. If any man shall kill with the 
sword, with the sword must he be killed. Here is the patience ahd 
the faith of the saints. 

This seems to stand above the narration as an interjected 
part. It has the weight and formality of a solemn moral 
axiom. It must have special reference to suffering from the 
use of brute force. The words of introduction is the formula 
used by the Holy Spirit seven times in the letters, "If any 
man hath an ear let him hear." To state this maxim as the 
patience and the faith of the saints must have reference to a 
time beyond their life; for we do not see personal vindication 
or righteous retribution here, and it was from under the altar 
that John saw the souls that had been slain for the testimony 
of Christ and heard them crying for avengement and saw them 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 239 

receiving reward and assurance of a coming vindication. The 
righteous retribution of God is here pledged by the greatest 
assurance. It is the patience and the faith of the saints. Christ 
shall both reward them and establish His rule in the earth. 
It strengthens them to endure persecution and death. His 
book of life contains their names, and eternity shall be theirs 
when time is ended. And this sustaining truth is the sub- 
stance of their faith, ^'either here nor in John's Gospel is 
it always clear who is the speaker. But John seems entirely 
passive and to give only what he saw and heard. This axiom 
miay be regarded as a direct statement of the Holy Sj)irit of 
the doctrine of the saints in relation to the use of brute force 
and the final triumph of Christ. Its occurrence, coming just 
after the account of the beast and the Dragon and before the 
third member of the beast trio appears, signifies a change of 
program like that which the day of Pentecost brought by the 
coming of the Spirit, for this beast trio mocks the heavenly 
trinity as we are soon to. see. At base the characteristics of 
the Dragon and the beast are the same, and the holy vision 
is at pains to show the succession and the essential sameness 
w^hile showing also their different manifestations. How" closely 
wedded are dragon, brute and human in this sketch! 

We are here about to take another step in the evolution 
of diabolical powers by the appearance of a third member and 
will see the full line of battle drawn betweeen the heavenly, 
on one side, and the worldly and diabolical powers on the 
other. The story discloses the animating and incentive spirit 
that lies under and actuates all oppositions to the Christ. 

THE TWO HORNED BEAST. 

And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had 
two horns like unto a lamb, and he spake as a dragon, and he 
exerciseth all the authority of the first beast in his sight, and he 



240 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

maketh the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first 
beast whose death stroke was healed. 

This is the third manifestation of the brute trio and stands 
in the same analogous relation to it that the Holy Spirit stands 
to the heavenly trinity^ and so performs parts which are a 
parody on the Holy Spirit as the spotted beast enacts a parody 
on the offices of Christ. This beast is of low origin. It comes 
up out of the earth as the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven. 
It did not come np out of the sea, for that represented universal 
power, but from the earth, something less than the sea, as we 
shall presently notice. This beast has a much improved ap- 
pearance over the greater one. He has "two horns like a lamb," 
and we shall next see that he also performs acts of a mixed 
character. "He spake as the dragon," means that he held to 
the teaching and doctrine of the Dragon, a successor. "And 
he exerciseth all the authority of the first beast in his sight" 
shows a close relation to both, and his enforcing the worship 
of the spotted beast by the use of his authority fully allies 
him with the diabolical power. 

He receives the doctrine of the dragon and uses the authority 
of the beast for enforcing it. He comes to enforce beast or 
Dragon worship upon his subordinates. 

And he doeth great signs that he should even make fire to come 
down out of heaven upon the earth in the sight of men, and he 
deceiveth them that dwell upon the earth by reason of the signs 
which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to 
them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to 
the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived, and it was 
given unto him to give breath to it that it should both speak and 
he caused that as many as should not worship the image of the 
beast should be killed; and he causeth all the small and the great, 
and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be 
given them a mark on their right hand or upon their forehead and 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 241 

that no man should be able to buy or to sell save he that hath the 
mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name. 

The first thing to notice about this beast is the heightened 
appearance of his religions acts. He not only looks like a 
lamb and orders an image to be made of the spotted beast, 
but he works signs and wonders and enforces religions ob- 
servances and even orders a religious trade mark to be branded 
npon his subjects which is done in the sight of the spotted 
beast, that is, with respect to him. This is a very remarkable 
change from the symbolism of the earlier part of the book 
where we have had horses, etc., to show the world powers con- 
sidered in their simpler form as merely and only worldly. We 
shall not again meet with these simpler forms, but this more 
complex and double natured, wherein is combined all the hos- 
tility of the dragon with an assumption of Christian authority 
and enforced worship in simulations of Christian obedience. 
It is here we reach the summit of infernal and brute power, and 
the two hostile forces come into full opposition as opposing 
kingdoms. We see a gradual introduction of the participants 
and actors upon the stage of the drama. 

In presenting Christ as the hero of this great story the seer 
declares His beginning before the birth of time, and even that 
He was slain from the foundation of the world, that He is the 
Alpha and the Omega, was with the Father in the beginning, 
etc. The Father is "He which Is and Which Was and Which 
Is To Come, the Lord God Almighty" and Christ is His Son 
to whom He gave "all authority in heaven and in earth," is 
now "the prince of the kings of the earth." 

On the other side we have the Dragon, the beast and the 
two horned beast, who is also called "the false prophet," xix, 
20. This false prophet represents the spirit or doctrine of 
the dragon and acts "in the sight of the beast," but it has a 
more tolerable aspect than either the beast or dragon. On the 
16 



242 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

heavenly side are the heavenly powers^ the Father and His 
Christ, and the apostles and the Holy Spirit and the churches 
and the word of God; and on the brute side, the old Serpent, 
the great Dragon, called Satan, and the Devil, and the Spotted 
Beast, called the Destroyer, etc., and the two-horned False 
Prophet, and the locusts and them that dwell on the earth who 
are not sealed on the forehead but marked on the hand, etc. 
These correspondent parts are so strangely disposed in the order 
of the story that we had very little thought of the great array 
they make Avhen gathered together and presented at points of 
opposition. The order that disposes them to these strange 
situations is that deeper, that divine order of cryptographic 
writing or pattern which gives this book the pre-eminence of 
being the greatest literary wonder of all ages. 

The Seals and the Trumpets are the great major series and 
they are ruled on a definite pattern and all other matters take 
their relations and positions from these as they proceed to 
unfold. In their inner and essential natures, the parts acted 
are regular and orderly, and our first bewilderment begins to 
break as the mist clears away and we appreciate the evident 
design and the multiple power of expression which this order 
affords us. Such words, such postures, such transitions reach 
heights and depths never before opened to the human mind 
and heart. 

John founds Christ's claims to rule the world in the totality 
of His creative, redemptive and heavenly power, and on the 
other side He has given us the names and situations and acts 
of the enemy and his allies which take root in the profound- 
est depths of diabolism. It is from the breadth and depth of 
the heart he enables us to see and to feel whence these two 
opposing spirits arise, one of them Avorshiping heavenly love 
and the other brute lust. One, sincere, chaste and refined, love 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 



243 



joy and peace^ etc., and the other worldly, undiscerning, coarse, 
brutish and devilish. 

Here are gathered into one view and placed side by side these 
two opposing powers. As the great parody is a simulation, 
it is both an opposition and imitation. Some of the points 
appear later in the story and some are added, not specifically 
stated in the text, but implied by the facts given of the two 
opposing powers. 

THE GREAT PARODY AND COUNTERPART ON THE GOSPEL 
OF SALVATION. 



The heavenly power. 
The heavenly trinity. 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Father gave all power to Son. 
Christ descended and ascended. 

Christ was put to death and rose 

from the dead. 
Christ opens His kingdom with 

a heavenly Pentecost 
Christ sent out His apostles to 

save endowed from above. 
Christ is given the key of David 

to open his house. 
Christ does will of the Father. 
Christ humbled Himself. 
Christ continues forever. 

Christ makes war with the 
sword of His mouth, the truth. 

Christ saves His people. 

Christ seals and numbers His 
people. 

Christ seals on the forehead. 



The diabolical power. 

The diabolical trio. 

Dragon, Beast and False 
Prophet. 

Dragon gave all power to beast. 

Beast descended from heaven 
and ascended from the pit. 

Beast had one head put to death 
and it revived. 

Beast opens pit with diabolical 
eruption of smoke. 

Beast brought up locusts to de- 
stroy endowed from below. 

Beast given key to open his pit. 

Beast does the will of dragon. 

The beast exalts himself. 

Beast continues for forty-two 
months. 

The beast wars with blasphem- 
ies and with lies. 

Beast deceives the people. 

Beast marks and bulks his 
slaves. 

The beast brands the hand or 
head. 



244 



MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 



Christ is in white raiment. 

Christ came in the sacred seven. 

Holy Spirit came after ascen- 
sion of Christ. 

Christ hath a bride. 

Christ hath a city, the New Je- 
rusalem. 

Christ is the mystery of God 
manifest as flesh. 

Christ absent a little while, etc. 

Christ entombed three and a 
half days. 

Christ has a millennium of a 
thousand years. 

The Holy Spirit is Christ's wit- 
ness. 

The Holy Spirit was manifest as 
fiery tongues. 

The Holy Spirit came from 
heaven. 

The Holy Spirit showed the 
things of God. 

The Holy Spirit breathed life 
into the two dead witnesses. 

The Holy Spirit caused the dis- 
ciples to praise God. 

Christ's church is the mother of 

martyrs. 
Christ gave true glory to His 

church. 
The saints tabernacle in heaven. 



The beast is spotted and scarlet. 

Beast in secular and Satanic six. 

False prophet came after the 
beast had taken his seat. 

The beast has a harlot. 

Beast has a city. Mystery Baby- 
lon, the Great. 

Beast is the mystery of iniquity 
manifesting himself as God. 

Beast present then absent, etc. 

The Devil is entombed a thou- 
sand years. 

The Devil is let out for a little 
while. 

The two-horned beast is false 
witness before the spotted 
beast. 

False prophet calls down fire in 
sight of men. 

False prophet comes out of the 
earth. 

False prophet took the things of 
the beast to show. 

False prophet breathed life into 
the image of the beast. 

False prophet caused his sub- 
jects to worship the image of 
the beast. 

Beast's church is the mother of 
the harlots. 

Beast gave false glory to the 
harlot. 

The wicked dwell on the earth. 



These might be carried much further but those given suffi- 
ciently illustrate how these parts stand over against each other 
and show how greatly they assist our study at the base of this 
story. These p'arts were not all played in the time of the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 245 

apostles and are not finished yet. This beast power, showing 
itself as a counterfeit religion and making such great pre- 
tenses, has been fairly understood since the Eeformation's dawn. 
It was the great light the Kevelation gave on this by which 
the Eeformation found its way out of "Mystery Babylon." 

The essential thing to know about the two-horned beast 
is his relation to the beast and the dragon and his joint 
opposition with them to Christ. This is fairly well presented 
in the table we have just seen. Eome was the inheritor of all 
world power. It w^as out of her that Daniel saw the great 
monster arise that was diverse from all the other beasts. But 
Eome changed her relations to the heavenly powers, passing 
from her pagan and dragon nature to a great state religion 
with Christian pretensions. These two Eomes stand to the 
Christian church as red dragon and spotted beast. By the 
very imagery w^hich the story employs they are the sum and 
representatives of all world power. That is, all that is ad- 
verse to God's will is fully represented in both these mani- 
festations, and not only so, but the sum of all diabolism is ex- 
pressed in this second Eome as in the first. 

While the associate powers, the great leaders on both sides 
of the contest, are seen only subordinately and through their 
functions, their places are cared for by signals and relations 
not to be mistaken and which always identify them in their 
places and acts. In this way each part represents its own place 
on its own side and stands against each and all on the oppos- 
ing side, and the seeming opposition as show^n in our table 
illustrates the true relations of the parts on their respective 
sides. 

The Father and the Son and the Spirit and all the saints, 
while they are seen separate, are a spiritual commonwealth, and 
adverse to them are Satan and the beast and false prophet 
and the wicked, a compact and common w^oe of antagonisni. 



246 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

The clear recognition of this fact reduces the story to a very 
simple affair, for whatever difficulties we may at first experi- 
ence, we cannot go astray from the main fact and its essential 
bearings. The story begins with the fall of man by sin in the 
garden East of Eden, and this we did not meet with at the 
first. This two-horned beast that came up out of the earth 
as the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, speaks like a 
dragon and he exercises ^^all the authority of the first beast 
in his sight.'^ This expression shows he is acting a p^irt as 
in presence of, or as in reference to the beast. He also uses 
his authority to compel his subjects, "them that dwell upon 
the earth,'' to worship the first beast whose deadly stroke was 
healed. Thus he acts in subordination. The mention of the 
"deadly stroke" here as a descriptive of the beast is a parody 
on the praise given the Lamb, because he was slain and did 
redeem us unto God by His blood. But this two-horned beast 
commanded his subjects to make, and they did make, an image 
to the spotted beast and he gave life to it. And the image 
being made, and life having been given to it, they w^ho made 
it are required to worship it on pain of death, political and 
religious death. So he causes a mark to be given by branding 
a sign on their heads, or hands, as a trade mark, so they may 
trade; "a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures 
of barley for a penny," comes to view now again as describing 
a mercenary religion. 

Over against these evil signs are counteracting parts to be 
noticed, which show a nearer approach to Christianity though 
he belongs to the diabolical trio. "He has two horns like a 
lamb and he makes fire to come down out of heaven in the 
sight of men." This brute "deceives them that dwell on the 
earth by reason of the signs which it was given to him to do 
in the sight of the beasts." These are not to be taken as 
genuine signs, as those with which Christ attested His divine 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 247 

mission, for there is nothing genuine in them from the pit 
of the abyss to the throne of the Caesars, but they had all the 
e£Eects of miracles to the class of peojole who are so degraded 
as to make an image to the spotted, ten horned beast and then 
to worship it. He gave it life, not physical or spiritual life, 
but a beastly life, declaring it the religion of the Realm. These' 
were of the kind that the locusts preyed upon, and are such 
as might have crucified the Lord and trodden down the "Holy 
City." The two signs this two-horned beast wrought were to 
command fire to come down and to give life to the image of 
the beast. Fire is the symbol for the word of God, and to 
cause it to come down out of heaven (the church) is a pro- 
cess exactly the opposite of its rising from the dead and ascend- 
ing as it did when the Holy Spirit raised the two witnesses 
that lay dead in the city of the beast. One is bringing the 
Bible into the church and the other handing it down from 
the church to the world. Causing fire to come down to the 
earth and in the sight of men is the counteract to the Holy 
Spirit's descent on Pentecost to give the true word, and the 
giving of life to the image is a mock of the breathing of life 
from God into the two witnesses and giving them life to rise and 
ascend, etc. 

Although we are able to see plainly the counterplay of 
opposition and imitation in this sign, we can only conclude 
that it seemed a miracle to his deluded followers, for it says 
that he was a deceiver and they were susceptible to deception 
and obeyed his authority. They were branded as slaves on 
the hand, in order to enjoy religious commerce. They were 
vassals, not sealed of God, not intelligent Christians. Now 
as the act described as the Spirit of God giving life to the 
two witnesses was interpreted to mean that God's Spirit moved 
His servants to translate His word into the language of the 
people, so here in this counterplay we must infer that some- 



248 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

thing was done to the word of God that the dragon or the 
beast did not do, and that the Holy Spirit did not do, for 
it was brought down. The word of God was given to John 
as a rod to measure the temple, and the altar, and the worship- 
ers, and wdien it was finished the two witnesses were seen in 
the symbol of the ark of the covenant which contained the 
two tables of stone. But this bringing down the word, or 
fire, is an opposite process and is brought to the earth and 
"in the sight of men." That is to say, the Bible was given 
to the people and in their own language. The other 
sign which the false prophet wrought was that after he had 
commanded his servants to make an image that is a facsimile 
of the beast he gave life to it. Now that spotted beast was 
no other than the new Eome that came up where the old one 
went down, and that was a state religion, and so must the image 
have been that w^as made in its likeness; and as its life de- 
pended upon world power so there must have been world power 
exercised in creating the image. This image must be a secu- 
lar hierarchy like its parent type. Here is another state re- 
ligion patterned on the former, and life is given to it and 
it is supported by authority and "he caused that as many as 
would not worship it should be put to death," that is, com- 
mercially dead in this kind of commerce. This bears suggestive 
relations to the monarch of Babylon commanding all his people 
to worship the great image he set up on pain of literal death. 
Eeligion enforced by beast power is offensive to God. 

This is a mercantile kind of religion in which none can take 
part except they have the trade mark. Not to be able to buy 
or sell is equivalent to being killed. To receive the mark on 
the right hand or on the forehead was exactly equivalent, for 
in such persons the head and hand are of the same unthinking 
stuff. They find their level in the flesh. These are wondrous 
characterizations without personalities^ bi^t they are such as en- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 249 

able us to see all men through them. They are such as en- 
able us to see on which side every one stands on that greatest 
of all questions. Losing sight of personalities, we yet see in 
these parts where every actor is putting in his work. This sim- 
plifies our knowledge and clears our vision of spiritual things 
and relations. 

To show the advantage and to illustrate this method of teach- 
ing, if we say "all the world should have the Washingtons 
and Jeffersons of the Americas" we seem not at first to have 
expressed a matter of large bearings. But we have divided the 
world into two parts, the one blessed and the other unblessed. 
"The Americas" does not take on close definition in the mind 
at once nor equally in all minds. 

One will think only of the countries so named, or of the one 
proper America, while another will at once include all repub- 
lics of the world as Americas in this sense. One will think of 
Washington and Jefferson in their persons and personal char- 
acteristics while the other will properly see them in their rep- 
resentative characters as related to the republic in which they 
acted a distinguished and age-making part^ and also in other 
republics where other men have acted the same corresponding 
parts, just as the sacred writer saw Enoch still living and im- 
mortal in the world. But as no other country is just like 
America, the mind begins to compare, keeping America in 
view as the pattern to see what nations may in this sense be 
called Americas. 

The lines may be drawn differently in different minds, but 
through all opinions as to which may be called Americas, 
America herself remains the fixed standard for judging and 
we positively know that was meant, though we may not clearly 
prove that some other countries might or might not have been 
included in the mind of the speaker. Not the map of the 
continent, nor its geography, nor its religion, etc., comes to 



250 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

vie\\% but the character of the government^ and that we always 
carry in the mind in looking around the world to find which, 
in this sense^ are Americas and which are not. 

This is exactly the kind of description the Kevelation gives 
ns of the world powers that slew the innocent Son of God. 
The Eomes slew Him and trod His holy city under foot and 
assumed to administer His kingdom. Which are the Eomes? 
Take her characteristics, as here so well drawn, for our stand- 
ard, and not only every government may be brought to the 
test, not only every church, but every individual as well, who 
abets, in any form, organized oppositions to the law of the Lamb 
slain to redeem the world. 

Washingtons and Jeffersons are not thus referred to at all 
in their personal characters, but for what they represent. Men 
greater in personal character might be found; men who repre- 
sented greater interests to the world, even, and found outside 
of all republics, but it is with the single view to their relations 
with governments they are here used. So it is in this Eevela- 
tion. It is in the view that the Christ is to rule this world 
that this book was written and that His enemies are so clearly 
and so well illustrated as of the beast, etc. 

Beyond Eome, pagan and papal, no government is clearly 
signified here, except the two-horned, or earth beast, but all 
governments are, in the degree of application to them of the 
great fact of opposition to His reign, also guilty before this 
description. 

So every church in like manner, and every member of 
church who upholds or abets opposition to the will of the Christ 
or perverts His truth, is of the Eomes and of the Harlots of 
the earth. 

H we have fixed or can fix definitely that the spotted beast 
is a great politico-religious power, Papal Eome, as the Dragon 
is pagan Eome, then it remains for us to fix with equal defi- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. ^51 

niteness this otlier power, this two-liorned beast "called also 
the false prophet/' that pays fealty to the spotted beast and 
the Dragon, and that exercises all the "authority of the first 
beast in his sight/' Who is he? Not a person, but a power 
that answers to these characteristics as follows: 

1. Earthly in origin as opposed to the heavenly. 

3. Having a more innocent appearance, more lamblike. 

3. Speaks or holds the doctrine of the Dragon, resting its 
claims upon political authority, world power, by virtue of suc- 
cession, etc. 

4. It exercises all the authority of the first beast, command- 
ing religious acts, etc. 

5. Makes "them that dwell upon the earth, the worldly 
people, to worship the first beast." 

6. It translates the word of God or brings down fire to 
the earth and for the common use "in the sight of men." 

7. It works signs, creating, by its authority, an image to 
the spotted beast and causing it to breathe, "to have life, etc." 

8. It causes all its subjects to receive the mark of the beast 
or his name or the number of his name, on the right hand 
or in the forehead in order to hold commercial relations in 
his kingdom. Is there any power having any connection with 
the beast that will respond to this description? 

1. The distinctly British Church as a separate institution 
sprang out of a quarrel Henry the Eighth had with the Pope 
(to whom England had been loyal) about his sinful divorces. 
Earthy enough in origin, surely! 

2. Some of the worst features of the papacy are not allowed 
in the British established Church. More innocent looking, 
"two horns like a lamb." 

3. The English Church holds to the doctrine of succes- 
sion through the popes. "Voice of the Dragon," world powder. 



252 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

4. It is established by law, is a world power in ecc'lesiastical 
dress, that is a religious state, and a political church. 

5. Its membership is required to be loyal to its authority 
-and so to the doctrine and practice of succession, through Eome. 

G. King James' translation of the Scriptures, ordered by 
the British government, has spread the world around, "caused 
hre to come down in the sight of men." 

7. Henry the Eighth commanded and the government of 
Great Britain formed a church in imitation of the papal church, 
making the head of the English government the head of the 
English church, as the Pope of Rome is the head of the Roman 
church, that was an "image" of the spotted beast. 

8. The English priests fraternize with the Roman church 
and preserve an attitude of corresponding unfraternity with 
the antipapists. 

Reordination is not required of a Roman priest on uniting 
with the English church, and the unfraternal attitude of the 
English church toward the Evangelical people is well known. 
What a sharp outline photograph this is to have been taken 
so many centuries before it came to pass. In plain words then 
we have a trio — Pagan Rome, Papal Rome and British Rome. 
But in as far as other state religions, or other churches re- 
sort to world power, and world methods, they are also included 
by the very method of presentation here illustrated, and are 
of the Romes earthy and brutish. 

Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding let him count the 
number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number 
is six hundred and sixty-six. 

There is no other thing about the Revelation that has so 
stoutly contradicted its being a revelation as the specula- 
tions about the number of the Beast. 

The direction in which the exegetes and expositors have 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 353 

sought tlie solution lias entirely misled tliem. They have all 
undershot the mark. 

What could the faithful exile have thought to have seen 
the learned guessing that has been wasted over those few words 
of his? The methods sought for the answer were entirely 
alien to the genius of the book. 

The solution sought by adding together the numeral values 
of the letters that give the result 666 is a paltry treatment, 
far below the work^ and has gone far toward bringing the noble 
old Cloth into disrepute. He who sits down with pencil and 
paper to work out on the numeral values of these letters by 
the use of the Hebrew Gematra or any such method will never 
give the world what is asked for. He has missed not the scope 
only and the aim, but also the very heart of the matter. 

The book chooses its own mode, but in that mode does all 
that its vehicle is capable of doing to convey the true meaning. 

Poetic and dramatic art we have in large measure and in- 
terspersed with mighty sayings of God Himself in plain and 
awful words, but juggling with alphabetical signs has no place 
here. The abuse of this book as a resort for all kinds of ad- 
venturers for the purpose of escaping the proofs which might 
easier test their preaching from other Scrintures; and its abuse 
from doctrinal controversies and from wonder-lovers in general, 
who have used it for personal or sectarian ends, there is none 
of them have done more wrong than those who have treated 
it as a book of acrostics, or of conundrums. It is true that in 
language of so large patterns and mental perspectives drawn 
in characters so deep, clouds and rivers and mountains of rain- 
bows and thunders and pealing trumpets; of star-fallings, sun- 
scorchings and drouths; of gaping abysses and striving of winds; 
of men angels, demons, etc., there would seem to be a large 
room given for different opinions, but the cryptic is methodical, 
the Cloth is woven and regular. There is unity of the highest 



254 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

order. The vision follows strictly its own path, and it chose 
forms of expression that outwear all changes and come safely 
unimpaired to ns across these eighteen centuries, and its great 
facts the worst history cannot badly pervert. 

The expression "Here is wisdom/^ some of our learned men 
have taken somewhat in the light of a personal challenge^ and 
a vast waste of learned guessing and riddle solving have been 
indulged in. But wisdom is not learning, is not education, and 
never can accept them in its place. 

"They that be wdse shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
ment; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
forever and forever." The wise man is he who builds his 
house upon a rock, not on the shifting sand. Those w^ho are 
"sealed with the seal of God in the forehead/' those "who taber- 
nacle in heaven" while here. These are "Vise," and in this 
is their wisdom that they follow the "Little Lamb whithersoever 
He goeth." "These" have understanding. Another mislead- 
ing phrase is in the words, "It is the number of a man." Taking 
this in a personal sense, many have searched for individuals, 
the letters of whose names w^hen used as numerals would, by 
the process of addition, amount to 666. 

"Neron Csesar" is one of the names which, by this method 
seems to many to be the person referred to. A dozen other 
names have been suggested with greater or less acceptance as 
the person who is to wear this brand of 666. 

The conflicting claims are so nearly equal as to have left 
our commentators in a state of confusion amid the conflict- 
ing claimants, etc. This method was resorted to from an early 
day, and it is said that as early as the third century it was 
observed that "Lateinos" contained the required number, and 
that therefore the Latin kingdom was meant. But since it is 
the beast that has this number, it cannot be personal. The 
beast is impersonal. The beast is a succession of persons and 



I 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 255 

powers^, expressed in seven heads and ten liorns of the Dragon 
and beast^ etc. Eather it is a power already described, com- 
posed of allied powers and having two diverse natures, shown 
not only by the heads and horns of these beasts, but also by 
the spots, etc.; so that no personality can answ^er to it. As on 
the heavenly side all personalities are submerged to give ele- 
vation to the principals, the divine trinity, so on the other 
side the same subsidence of personality is had to give eminence 
to the diabolic trio. The words, "for it is the number of 
man,^' must not be taken to refer to any one man in contrast 
to other individual men, but man as opposed to God, sinful, 
apostate man. 

The current and somewhat plausible interpretation is found 
by adding together the numeral values of the letters worn on 
the Pope's tiara. But it is also ingenious, like the former, 
and out of keeping with the scope and tenor of the work, even 
requiring a juggle with the proper spelling to get the result. 

It is the number of man^ mortal and sinful, as against the 
Lamb, the first man Adam against the second man Christ. That 
is, the Lamb comes in God's number and the beast in the evil 
sign. This gives meaning and point to the antithesis. 

We note that this number is both the number of the Beast 
and the number of his name, and that no man should "be 
able to buy or to sell save he that hath the mark even the 
name of the Beast or the number of his name." To have the 
name or the mark was equivalent, therefore, to having the 
number of the name. 

It is declared that this two-horned beast causeth all, "that 
there be given them a mark on their right hand or upon their 
forehead (in order that they might buy or sell), and that no 
man should be able (or enabled) to buy or to sell save he 
that hath the mark, even the name of the beast." 

This description clearly points to a trade mark, a commercial 



256 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTII; 

sign. The motive and object of imposing the name or num- 
ber of the beast upon his subjects was a commercial one. None 
should buy or sell save he that hath the mark, or the name, or 
its equivalent, the number of the name. For trading purposes 
he can have either, for either will answer. It must be noticed 
that this is not alone the number of the first or spottedHDcast, 
but the number of the two-horned beast also, for it is he who 
is said to enjoin it. By implication he also himself has the 
number, and all his subjects are required to have the num- 
ber or the name which is the same. 

The mark of the beast therefore was not a mark of dis- 
tinction as between the first and second beast, nor as between 
the beast and the dragon, but was the mark of both beasts, 
and therefore also of the diabolical trio, and also of them that 
worship it; and this is in contrast with the Lamb and His sealed 
host. "If any man receive a mark in his forehead or upon 
his hand he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." 

That is to say, in the further illustration of the great parody 
already given, that as the Lamb seals His servants in the fore- 
head, causing them to understand the truth and to walk in 
its holy light, so the beast marks his servants in the right 
hand or in the forehead so they will serve him. That is as 
the Lamb comes in the sacred number of seven, so the beast 
comes in the secular number of six. It was entirely with ref- 
erence to buying and selling that his servants were required 
to have the number, or the name of the beast. 

In his claims and assumptions as opposed to the Lamb, he 
is in the number six, a time number as opposed to eternity, 
worldly as opposed to heavenly, and labor and commerce and 
trade as opposed to rest, religion and eternity, etc. Six is the 
symbol of time and toil just as seven is of rest and reward. 
Seven is sacred, six is secular. Christ came by seven angels, 
seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 257 

seven evangels, seven bowls of wrath, etc. But the beast and 
his kingdom are all work days. He knows no Sabbath, has 
no rest for the hereafter. He is of the earth and earthy. He 
was not slain from the foundation of the world. Those who 
follow him "they dwell on the earth, shall wonder whose names 
were not written in the book of life from the foundation of 
the world when they behold the beast how that he was and 
is not." The dragon is six, the beast is six, and the second 
beast called the false prophet, is six, and all their worshipers 
are marked with his name or the number six. 

But the symbol goes far deeper than all this. It is the sign 
of idolatry in its deepest inferno. Six is said to be the symbol 
of the Elusinian Mysteries, and the sign of the Isis, the Egyp- 
tian Deity. It is the symbol in pagan mysteries^ for devil wor- 
ship and of spiritual theosophy in the deceptions of pagan 
priestcraft. Our word stigma comes from the name of the 
sixth letter in the Greek alphabet. There was a special form 
of the letter used for a mystery symbol different from the letter 
in ordinary use. The "mark" means a brand or a stigma, etc. 
This is what he imposes on his servants. This is the word 
that was used to express the brand that was put upon cattle 
and stock and slaves and prisoners of war to show their own- 
ership, etc. Our word stigma is from stizo, which means a 
brand or mark of dishonor, and it is the same meaning given 
to this. mark. Sinful man was created on the sixth day and 
the serpent was created on the sixth day and it is given six 
names in the Bible. Goliath bore his symbols of strength when 
he carried six pieces of armor. His height was six cubits and 
the weight of his armor six hundred shekels. He was full 
clad in heathen symbols. 

The image that Nebuchadnezzar sat up to be worshiped in 
the plain of Dura was six cubits broad, and sixty cubits 
high and was worshiped with six instruments of musio. 
17 



258 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

While some of these facts are only suggestive, they all have a 
bearing on the mysterious number six in connection with idol- 
atry. It strikes root in the very depths of diabolism as point- 
ing to the source of sin and the fall of man; and John, who 
is the apostle of love, is also the apostle of ultraism, leaving 
not one bright color or trait in the character of Satan or those 
allied with him. We have three very interesting uses of the 
number six in this book and they all have the same allusion 
to idolatry that four has to apostasy, etc. The backslidden 
church at Laodicea has six deprecations as follows: They are: 

1. Lukewarm. 4. Poor, 

2/ Wretched, 5. Blind, 

3. Miserable, 6. Naked, 

and those who did not repent after the woe of the sixth 
trumpet, John says they worship: 

1. Devils, 4. Idols of brass, 

2. Idols of gold, 5. Idols of stone, 

3. Idols of silver, 6. Idols of wood, , 

and in the chapter before us we have religious slaves: 

1. The Small, 4. The Poor, 

2. The Great, 5. The Free, 

3. The Rich, 6. The Bond. 

Six occurs only in these cases. One can fairly see the old 
serpent crawling through all this trading and marking the 
servants of beast power. 

The buying and selling well represent the religious busi- 
ness of worldlings and world power and world worship. They 
make merchandise of Christ as they did of His garments, and 
they sold His servants and tramped down His church. Christ 
is not said to come in any number expressly, but He does in 
fact come in the symbol seven. In six days God created the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 259 

heaven and the earth and on the seventh He rested^ and 
seven is the symbol of His rest and fullness and of all His 
heavenly powers, His apostles, His churches and the Holy 
Spirit, all looking to the divine consummation. Six is devilish 
and is opposed to seven, which is heavenly. It stands in the 
Greek thus: '^ '^ 1=666, 

In this manner, if we were to express Christ in symbol num- 
bers, it would stand: ^^ l^ 5=777. 
conquest, perfection, eternity and Sabbatic rest. 



260 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTEE XIV. 

Revelation XIV. 

THE REGENERATION. 

We have now passed over the first great division of the 
Apocalypse. The two major series are the Seals and Trnmpets, 
and joined with these we saw the work of the Holy Spirit 
reviving the two witnesses (the word of God) to measure the 
new temple^ and, following these, the fortunes of the church. 
There is no extension of time in the two great series to follow, 
as though they came later, but they will cover the same period 
of time, or so much of it as is involved in the phase of the 
subject to be treated. There is no time beyond the seventh 
trumpet and the seventh seal, as they each mark the end. 
Within that period all is finished. What follows now is a dif- 
ferent point of view or the presentation of the subject matter 
related to the second half of the Great Commission. 

The Seals and Trumpets, taken together with the chapters 
on the Spirit and the Church, gave so much of the substance 
of the story as relates to the first part of the Great Commis- 
sion, while the double series, which Ave are now to study, give 
the subject matter as it is related to the judgment or negative 
side of the Great Commission upon them that believe not. 
Disposed npon this order a great range of correlated parts has 
been brought to view which have vital relations to the 
subject, but not with direct reference to chronological order. 
The treatment along these closely related lines must, of course, 
involve each other, just as writing a commercial history of a 
country must involve its political and military history, etc. 
But these two double series are related to each other on a plan 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 261 

which shows by their nature and relations to belong to the 
two sides of the Great Commission respectively. John's own 
giving of the commission is "God so loved the world that He 
gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him 
shall not perish, bnt have eternal life." Life and death are 
the alternatives. Till now all we have read pertained to the 
first or positive side, and what follows is the negative and 
judgment side upon the wicked. The Seals and Trumpets 
come to view again, but in new names and offices, which clearly 
show the last things as respects the punishment of the wicked 
and rewards of the saints. 

The fourteenth chapter stands in relation to the second 
half of the book somewhat as the fifth stood to the first half. 
That chapter presented Christ standing before the Father to 
receive the sealed book concerning the Eeformation; this 
show^s him standing before the regeneration on the beautiful 
Mount Zion with His saints looking into the regeneration with 
the last commission to the world. The Christian dispensation 
is thus viewed in three parts: 

The first is the Evangelization under the apostles, the second 
is the Eeformation in which we are now engaged, the time of 
trumpeting, and the third the Eegeneration, in which all beast 
power shall be put down and which is an extension of the 
Eeformation on a new basis. The first is given in history, the 
second is given in mystery, the third will be given in the 
full open light of the prophecies revealed and understood. 
The seals are to be broken and read. The two new series we 
now must study we will call the Evangels and the Avengers 
of the Eegeneration, as words fittingly expressing their acts and 
correlations, the first series having no name given it and the 
second being called "the seven vials" or "bowls of wrath." 

By the number of seven parts in these series, and by their 
relation to each other, and by their joint relation to the two 



262 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

major series (Seals and Trumpets) all show clearly it is Christ 
and His apostles acting over again corresponding but other 
and different parts in this great achievement; and as we found 
their relations in the Seals and Trumpets were the relations 
they sustained under the Great Commission, and as carrying 
it out on the positive side, so here they are in correspondent 
parts carrying it out on the negative side, the last of God's 
plagues upon the disobedient. Christ now stands before the 
Eegeneration with His sealed saints to again perform seven 
parts as He did in opening the seven seals, but now seven angels 
are employed. Two angels are supplied with apparently no 
other design than to m^ake good the seven parts and to show 
that what the seals and trumpets were to the positive these are 
to the negative side of the Great Commission. So it preserves 
unity of design. He wrote seven letters and opened seven seals 
and now acts seven parts again. 

It must, of course, be firmly fixed in mind that these are 
only the forms chosen to express the truth that God is in fact 
carrying out these judgments through His saints. There is 
no intimation of any new forces to enter the field other than 
those already known and appointed. We have the sum of all 
heavenly powers now at work except the Eevelation of St. 
John, which is practically an almost forbidden book, though 
it is the chief corner stone of the ISTew Testament. Our present 
Reformation was not the result of new visible forces, but the 
new use and application of the old, under the power of the 
Holy Spirit in the hearts of His servants. So we may expect 
the Regeneration also to be greater far with the great sealed 
book now open. 

And I saw and behold the Lamb standing on the Mount Zion and 
with him a hundred and forty and four thousand having his name 
and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 263 

The number of the saints who were said to be about the 
throne to worship Him when Christ took the book to open 
it was ^^ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of 
thousands/^ and at the mystic Pentecost there were "numbered 
a hundred and forty and four thousand/' same as here; but 
when John saw them himself he pronounced them "a multi- 
tude which no man can number/' It includes all saints, for 
his treatment of them never admits a division. These saints 
are now seen having their reward. They have His name 
and His Father's name written on their foreheads, and this is 
their passport to all fields of the Lord's possessions. 

When he took the book to open it the angels or saints sung 
a new song, saying, "Thou art worthy to take the book and 
to open it, etc.," but now they sing another "new song." It 
is the song of Moses and the Lamb; the song of deliverance; 
but the oracle does not answer the question whether this is in 
the spirit world. It will not divide on that line. All saints 
have eternal life now. 

And I heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters 
and as the voice of great thunder and as the voice of harpers harp- 
ing, and they sing as it were a new song before the throne and be- 
fore the living creatures and the elders and no man could learn the 
song save the hundred and forty and four thousand, even they that 
had been purchased out of the earth. 

Each guest now stands with his Lord, and, having His 
name written on his forehead and a harp in his hand, in a 
swell of exclamations he sings deliverance as he looks down 
upon the fields now reaped and the harvest gathered and the 
stubble to be burned. The song he sings no other can ever 
learn. N'o one can sing salvation who has it not, though we 
suffer our choirs to perpetrate the lie sometimes in our 
churches. 

These are they which were not defiled with women (false 



264 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

churches) for they are virgins. These are they that follow the 
Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These are purchased from among 
men to be the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their 
mouth was found no lie, they are without blemish. 

They will not even sing a lie. What a suggestion is this 
that these are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
goeth, for in times of simulations there is no trnly good move- 
ment that is not soon corrnpted by men, so that which at an 
early stage is a helper of onr virtue, our faith, and our per- 
sonal purity, afterward becomes an obstacle and a corrupter 
of them; and those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever he 
goeth have to hold all the organizations of men like Israel on 
leaving Egypt ready to go at a moment's warning; for Christ 
cannot be found in any of the corrupt organizations of men 
where selfishness rules and where pretense to religion is a mock 
of the true. Here on Mount Zion, with Him whom they fol- 
lowed whithersoever He goeth, they sing in thunderous praises 
to the twanging of ten thousand times ten thousand harps and 
the melody of voices. The exodus is now effected and the dark 
waters roll behind us and we sing the song of deliverance while 
the waves flow on above our enemies. This is the opening 
of the Regeneration. We seem near at this hour. 

The Lamb is mentioned twenty-eight times and in every case 
a better translation would give us young lamb or "Little 
Lamb," and. in this we see the refinement and endearment of 
his name as John was fond of using it against the great coarse 
beast that counterfeits His holy ofhces. His painstaking for 
Llis own precious followers is marked by the same care for 
their preservation. They are sealed on the forehead and 
recorded and numbered and clad in white garments and are 
tabernacled and led to living fountains of water and have His 
own and His Father's names written on their foreheads, etc. 
No locality as Mount Zion can be thought of any more than 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 265 

an actual writing on the forehead. It is a condition, not a 
place. 

Long absent from his friends and from the once beloved 
city of his fathers and from the dearest spot on earth, his own 
home, to which he led Mary weeping from the cross, John 
now sees his Lord on the once glorious Mount Zion clothed 
with the glories of triumph and His saints rejoicing. The 
Jews^ temple, once the pride of Israel, is now in the dust. 
The place is profaned and the disciples scattered, the apostles 
all dead, and now what thoughts must have filled his heart 
while he looked upon this scene, we cannot tell. He has seen 
his Lord, heard Him speak, felt His hands upon him, yet 
he has not ventured to reply or speak to Him. This is the 
preface to our new^ series, the Evangels and Avengers. All the 
imagery that represented the worldly and diabolical powers as 
dominating over the saints and the church are henceforth miss- 
ing. Heaven is triumphant now and till the end. There are 
no more symbols showing God's people in oppression. Hence- 
forth all is judgment upon the wicked. 

In looking upon these two great series, the Seals and Trum- 
pets on one hand and the Evangels and Avengers on the other, 
we will think of the two mounts of cursing and blessing, Ebal 
and Gerazim, between which Israel waited while the two groups 
of prophets stood and pronounced blessing and cursing; the 
two tables of stone containing the law, the two trees in the 
Garden, the book written within and on the back side, the 
two-edged sword, the two great dreams of Joseph and of Pha- 
raoh and of Nebuchadnezzar, the two candlesticks, the two 
olive trees, the two witnesses, and the two trees in the New 
Jerusalem, and related to these the two sides of the Great 
Commission, which is the form that governs the relations of 
the categories of the major sevens to each other. The Evangels 
and Avengers are companions as respects each other as the 



266 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Seals and Trumpets were companions^, and, taken together, tliey 
are negative companion to them as the second part of the Great 
Commission is negative to the first part. 

The Evangels and Avengers, like the Seals and Trumpets, 
record the progress and ongoing of time, but they do not begin 
at the same point, but rather as belonging by their nature to 
the time of the three "woe" trumpets. The important point 
in which these series differ from the Seals and Trumpets is 
that in these the world powers have no victories. Even their 
number "four'' is missing. Everything goes the heavenly way. 
While we see again the same divisions into groups of four and 
three, the groups of three come first, as in the letters, and now 
both groups are heavenly victories. The numbering in the Evan- 
gels series goes only as far as to three, as "the second angel" 
and "the third angel," and the other four parts go unnum- 
bered, and this seems to have escaped attention hitherto, so 
that it was not discerned as vital to the order that there are 
seven actors in the series to properly supplement the seven 
Seals, which they do. It is strange to observe that not only 
do these two series stand to each other in the same analogous 
relation as do the Seals and Trumpets in the points named, 
but there lies between them a Pentecost occupying the same 
relative position, and occupying about the same relative space, 
but it is a different kind of Pentecost. The day of Pentecost 
not only affirmed Christ's righteousness, but convicted the 
world of sin. It does not as the first one face the Evangeliza- 
tion, but the Eegeneration. It does not show the early acts 
of the apostles, thus indicating that they come later and belong 
to the three woe trumpets. 

THE FIRST EVANGEL. 

And I saw another angel flying mid heaven having an eternal 
gospel to proclaim to them that dwell upon the earth and unto every 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 267 

nation and tribe and tongue and people, and he saith with a great 
voice. Fear God and give him glory for the hour of his judgment is 
come and worship him that made the heaven and the earth and the 
sea and the fountains of waters. 

The heightened aspect of this evangel's mission shows we 
have come out into greater light. We are looking upon the 
times and conditions of the regeneration, the last call, when 
the starlight of onr present Eeformation will sink away before 
the rising snn of that new glad day of the third and finishing 
work of the heavenly powers. The power of God, and the 
people of God are coming into the ascendant and are no longer 
to crawl about the earth seeking a place where to be tolerated 
by its mere snfierance as hitherto. x4n eternal Gospel refers 
to the more permanent state of things as against the changeful 
and transitory of hitherto. 

The evangel mounts above the earlier stage. At first the 
truth rode a horse, and then it cast out fire as from within 
the temple, and then it mingled with blood in the unequal 
strife with brute force, then it rose to the voice of Trumpets, 
then as the uttering of voices of thunders^ but now^ it takes 
to the heavens and flies aloft above our heads and cries aloud 
a last call so that all the tribes and nations of the earth can 
hear. At the Eeformation the truth arose as from the dead 
and ascended to the temple, but now it comes as from on 
high and on rapid wing flies from nation to nation, saying, 
"Fear God and give Him glory,^' and proclaiming the eternal 
gospel unrestrained and aboA^e all harm to be followed by an- 
other to bring good news, more yet. 

The mention of all nations and tribes and tongues and 
people and of the sea and the fountains of waters show the 
greatest extent and universality in the preaching. There is a 
grandeur about this preaching not hitherto seen. It is like 
a formal summon with authority from God. What a time of 



268 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

largeness and activity is this! The present means and methods 
of spreading the gospel strongly suggest the approach of such 
a time and invite us to rise and possess the kingdom. 

THE SECOND EVANGEL. 

And another, a second angel, followed, saying. Fallen! fallen! is 
Babylon the great which hath made all the nations to drink of the 
wine of the wrath of her fornication. 

The same rising into greater power is noticed again in the 

extent of judgment. At first, at the reformation, she fell only 

'^a tenth part/' but now proud Babylon falls twice. She is 

"fallen, fallen." She falls and falls; the wicked city that has 

made all the nations drunken with the wine of the wrath of her 

fornication. This angel also flies midheaven, following the 

first to tell all nations the joyful news of a great disaster upon 

the enemy. 

THE THIRD EVANGEL. 

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great 
voice, If any man worship the beast and his image and receive a 
mark upon his forehead or upon his hand he also shall drink of 
the wine of the wrath which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his 
anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the 
presence of the holy angels and in ihe presence of the Lamb, and 
the smoke of their torment goeth up forever and ever, and they 
have no rest day and night, they that worship the beast and his 
image and whoso receiveth the mark of his name. 

This is a picture of the fate of all who worship beast power. 
This third angel also flies mid heaven, calling the awful judg- 
ment of God upon all who worship the beast or his image. The 
symbols of punishment hitherto had more of a temporal aspect 
as hiding in the caves and rocks, etc., but this has in it the 
fire and brimstone forever and ever. It also shows that false 
religion is classed with beast worship. 

The two groups of the Evangels are divided by the 



0]R, THE RIVEN VEIL. 269 

\rords: ^^ere is the patience of the saints^ they tliat keep 
the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."' This same 
sentiment we had in substance in xiii^ 10. It is toward this 
righteons retribution tliat the children of faith look forward. 
It was this that consoled and qnieted the sonls of the mart}TS 
that cried from under the altar. As the light of the trntli 
abont Christ has risen so greatly already, it is doubtful if the 
believer can even now live np to the highest light and not 
be required to suffer vexation and persecution from the wicked, 
the wickedest of whom themselves profess the religion of Christ 
and hold membership in a so-called church. Joined to this 
truism is another saying spoken from heaven and sanctioned 
by the Spirit very like those utterances we heard in the seven 
letters. 

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, 
that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with 
them. 

Here again we see a condition advanced greatly upon 
the former state. They will no longer cry from under the 
altar^ as at the first, but are blest and happy saints. It calls 
our attention to a great change. At that early time all who 
fell under the stroke of beast power had, like our dear exile, 
to look down into the dark future in which personal worth 
and example must be lost in the night of its darkness that 
shut them off from their fruit here in this world. The voices 
of the slain then cried from beneath the altar to their Master 
for retribution, but now all is changed. They looked forward 
to a time when the Bible would be clad in graveclothes and 
the church would be trodden under the feet of the nations, and 
even what light the world had would be turned to darkness 
and their own names lost from the world's history. The bones 
of a few of them would be preserved and worshiped more than 



270 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tlieir deeds were imitated, but their souls must cry from anotlier 
world. 

Their lives were without succession on earth. John saw 
the wrong way in which the churches were moving and hence 
his strong desire to see what the seven sealed messages con- 
tained about their future. No wonder the book was bitter to 
his reflections, but now he announces a time when all is 
changed. What is done in righteousness henceforth shall live 
and the fruits of our sowing shall increase. The time has 
come when "their works do follow^' and hence "blessed are 
the dead who die in the Lord henceforth, yea saith the Spirit.'^ 
They rest from their labors, they no longer cry from under the 
altar and their works do follow with them, consoling thought! 

How wonderful are the present means of preserving all that 
one does and not only for handing it down to posterity, but for 
spreading it abroad — the printing press, the telegraph, the tele-, 
phone and even the phonograph, so that not only his thoughts 
and deeds, but his likeness and his voice may all be taken and 
handed down to speak like Enoch when he is no longer here, 
"being dead he yet speaketh.'^ 

In the Evangels the first group are sowing angels, and the 
second group are harvesting angels. How vividly the words 
come to mind. "He that soweth the good seed is the son of 
man; the seed is the word of God; the field is the world; 
the good seed are children of the kingdom, but the tares are 
the children of the wicked one, and the enemy that sowed 
them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world and the 
reapers are the angels." 

THE HARVESTERS. 

The harvesters are in pairs. Two gather the wheat and 
two burn up the tares. Two act as voices from within and two 
act as harvesters without. But the tares here are changed 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 271 

into the symbol of an earth-creeping vine to represent the 
wicked. 

And I saw and behold a white cloud and on the cloud I saw 
one sitting like unto a son of man having on his head a golden 
crown and in his hand a sharp sickle. 

The clond w^as the ascension chariot of onr risen Lord, 
with the clond He was mantled w^hen He descended with the 
little book open. The cloud is now His flying vehicle in which 
He goes to the harvest of the earth. He was first seen with 
a bow, riding a white horse, and again we see Him with 
a sharp two-edged sw^ord coming out of His mouth toward His 
foes, but this 'time He has a sharp sickle going to the wheat 
harvest. This still shows the rising toward a climax in every 
part He bears. "One like unto the Son of man" almost calls 
His name. It is indeed the Son of Man. This is another 
coming of the Lord and is a far more plausible one for a 
theory of His visible appearing than that we met with in the 
tenth chapter, where He comes with the little book open in 
His hand to reveal, but now with a sickle to the harvest. 

And another angel came out of the temple crying with a great 
voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send forth thy sickle and reap, 
for the hour to reap has come for the harvest of the earth is over- 
ripe, and he that sat upon the cloud cast his sickle upon the earth 
and the earth was reaped. 

The two parts being employed by two angels seems to have 
no other object than to fill up the measure to seven to har- 
monize with the seven seals. This harvest is a wheat harvest 
as against the vintage harvest which is to follow. An angel 
within the temple commands the angel upon the cloud to 
thrust in his sickle. This temple angel suggests it is the 
church taking part. In studying it we must not forget that 
it is in fact ourselves doing all that is done — that is, the church 



272 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

in that larger sense of the snm total of all the heavenly powers 
now at work and that the use of these forms is to preserve an 
order and to give assurance that it is a part of the carrying 
out of that gospel which began in miracles, but since the 
Reformation has won without them. 

And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, 
he also having a sharp sickle, and another angel came out from the 
altar, he that hath power over fire, and he cried with a great voice 
to him that had the sharp sickle, saying. Send forth thy sickle and 
gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully 
ripe, and the angel cast his sickle into the earth and gathered the 
vintage of the earth and cast it into the winepress of the wrath of 
God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and there 
came out blood from the winepress even unto the bridles of the 
horses as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs. 

This is not a battle, not a war scene. It is a harvest scene 
and the blood which forms a sea in which horses might swim 
is the blood of "the vine of the earth," which creeps upon 
the earth, and whose fruit is clustered like the sins of the 
wicked city which are said to cleave together (xviii, 5, margin). 
The place of execution is outside the city. When John was 
commanded to rise and measure the temple and the altar and 
the worshipers he was told not to measure the court without, 
for it is given to the Gentiles. Without the temple and outside 
the city mean the same thing viewed from two points. It means 
those outside the fold or church. The wheat harvest being 
ripe has already been gathered in, and each grain has a dis- 
tinct personality and is cared for. But the vine cleaves to- 
gether. The earth vine holds the same relation in this figure 
of the harvest that the tares do to the wheat in one of His 
parables and that the goats do to the sheep in another. Also 
this earth vine is expressed by the red horse, by the black 
horse, by the dragon and by the beasts. They are all of one 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. ^73 

family and are to be taken without the church or kingdom 
to be put into the wine-press of the wrath of God. These 
are they who are not measured, not numbered, not sealed on 
the forehead, not saved, but are engrossed or massed together 
and here described in their overthrow as so many furlongs of 
blood. They are now in the wine-press of the wrath of God, 
to be trodden till their blood runs a red sea where horses may 
swim to their bridle bits. The wheat is gathered in and safely 
cared for, but the chaff, the tares, the goats, the creeping vine 
are now harvested and the vintage is taken without the city 
and is trodden in the wdne-press of the wrath of God till the 
blood runs and fills a basin in extent of furlongs four times 
four multiplied by a hundred, sixteen hundred furlongs. 

Four times four multiplied by one hundred, the grand sum 
total of all worldliness and sin brought to execution. This has 
a strong general resemblance to the crucifixion of the world 
powers in the sixth seal and to the world powers let loose to 
shed blood in the sixth trumpet. The separation is now com- 
plete; the wdieat is gathered, the tares are burned and we shall 
soon behold again that new sea of joyful saints, of the mil- 
lennium clear as crystal. The sea into which the mountain 
sank and filled with corruption is going to be purified. The 
angel that commands the gathering of the vine is said to be 
he that hath power over fire; that means the weapon is the 
word and a sword and a bow and fire, etc. Christ's personal 
victories are represented as won by a bow in His hand, and 
a sword coming out of His mouth, and by His treading His 
enemies under His feet, and by crucifying them, _ and as ruling 
them with a rod of iron, and as binding Satan with a chain 
and sealing him up and casting him into a lake of fire. These 
are symbols of the Eegeneration and purifying of the v/orld. 
In these Evangels we do not see anything like the mingling of 
fire with blood, or a mountain on fire, or other results as where 
18 



274 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the ajDOstles were the actors, but like the seals, as where Christ 
acts in His own function, all confirming the fact that the Evan- 
gels are the complement and the negative to the Seals as the 
bowls of wrath or Avengers are to the Trumpets. 

The horses mentioned here as swimming in blood to their 
bridle bits are red horses — that is, worldliness — swimming in 
its own gore in the great defeat it is to sustain from the 
treading in the wine-press or from the sword that proceeds 
out of His mouth as in battle, where we are presently to see 
the army of white horses arise where the white horse of the 
first seal is become victorious and head of the armies of heaven. 
Every sign and symbol connected with this series shows the 
heightened conditions of the great drama. Angels fly mid- 
heaven and ride upon a white cloud and carry sickles and come 
from within the temple and from the altar, and order the 
harvesting of grain, and the gathering and treading down of 
the wicked outside the holy city. Human life has changed 
conditions. It is declared by a voice from heaven that hence- 
forth blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; they rest 
from their labors now, are satisfied and blessed. Here is a 
triumph on earth, which is the field of battle. The Evangels 
tell the entire story on the negative or judgment side of the 
Great Commission just as the Seals told it on the positive and 
saving side. This is the form and structure upon which the 
Eevelation of God concerning things which shall come to pass 
hereafter articulates. 



FULL FORM OF THE REVELATION AND ITS PARALLELS 
WITH THE PLAN OF THE GOSPEL. 



THE GOSPEL. 
Christ the Word. God revealed. 
Joh. 1:1— 



The enrollment. 



Joh. 1:29- 



Christ teaches openly. 

Joh. 2:1— 

Reveals his glory. Joh. 2:11. 

Christ teaches in proverbs or 

parables. Joh. 16:25. 

He is arrested and slain. 

He ascends and gives the Holy 
spirit. Acts 1 and 2. 

He is silenced and prepares the 
apostles to speak. Matthias 
added. Acts. 2:1—4. 

Apostles preach and violence fol- 
lows. Acts 2:14, 4:1— 

Paul added by direct call to go 
to the nations. Acts 9:1 — 

John called to be prophet by 
Christ. Revl. 1:1—20. 

The Holy Spirit raised Christ 
and opened the church. 

Joh. and Acts. 

The church triumphs and de- 
cays. Acts 5:84 — Rev. 2 and 3. 



"Things that shall come to pass 
hereafter." 



Must prophesy again. 



Rev. 10:1L 



THE REVELATION. 
God revealed through Christ the 
Alpha and the Omega. 

Rev. 1:1^ 
The apostles, the H. Spirit and 
churches enrolled. " 1:4 — 16. 
Teaches by seven open letters. 

" 2 and 3. 
Reveals his glory. " 4:1 — 

By opening seals. " 6:1— 

He destroys his enemies. 

" 6:12— 
He ascends and seals the saints. 
" 7:1— 
Silence reigns half an hour and 
trumpeters prepare. An angel 
added. " 8:1—6. 

Trumpets sound, followed by 
hail, fire and blood. " 8:7 — 
The sixth trumpeter direct call 
to free the nations. " 9:13 — 
Drama of John's receiving of 
the Revelation. " 10:1 — 

The Holy Spirit raised the dead 
witness and opened the sec- 
ond church. " 11 — 1 — 19. 
The church grows and goes into 
wilderness and decay. 

" 12:1—17. 

SECOND PART. 

The dragon, the devil, enlists his 
successors, the beasts. 

" 13:1—18. 
Christ gains Mt. Zion. " 14:1:6. 
His acts of regeneration. 

" 14:6:20. 
His saints prepare for the re- 
generation. " 15:1 — 8. 
They pour out vials of wrath. 

" 16:1—21. 
Judgment of the harlot. " 17:1 — 
Beast powers desert her. 

" 18:1— 
Marriage supper of the Lamb. 

" 19:1— 
First resurrection. " 20:1 — 
The great white ;;hrone. " 20. 
The New Jerusalem. 

" 21 and 22. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 275 



CHAPTEE XV. 

Revelation XV. 

THE PENTECOST OF REGENERATION. 

The subject of the fifteenth, chapter is of the nature of a 
Pentecost. It stands related to the Evangels and Avengers 
in a way exactly analogous to that which the mystic Pente- 
cost, of the seventh chapter, stood to the Seals and Trumpets. 

1. We notice that its position lying between the Evangels 
and Avengers suggests its character. 

2. Its supplementary relation to the Evangels and its prefa- 
tory relations to the Avengers Series also tell its nature. 

3. It is in its nature related to the Evangels and Avengers, 
having affinities with both, like that we saw between the Seals 
and Trumpets, the glassy sea here being mingled with fire, etc. 

The apostles are now commissioned with the vengeance of 
our God. 

And I saw another sign in heaven great and marvelous, the 
seven angels having the seven plagues which are the last; for in 
them is finished the wrath of God. 

These are called definitely "the seven angels," as though 
we had known them before. They seem to stand and hold 
the plagues very like their standing and holding the seven 
trumpets and as then there was an interruption of the order 
to elect another angel, so there is here an interruption in the 
proceedings, but without any election. It is carrying out the 
same commission, This is in form a Pentecost to the nega- 



276 



MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 



tive and judgment side of the Great Commission, but it is 
dim and partial. 

And I saw as it were a glassy sea mingled with fire and them 
that come victorious from the beast and from his image and from 
the number of his name standing by (or upon) the glassy sea hav- 
ing harps of God. 

It would seem that the victors were standing on the sea, but 
it is only saying they were of the sea or part of the sea itself. 
Those nearest were seen in vision as persons, but at a distance 
they blended into a sea, as we see in a picture of a multitude 
of people. 

This sea represents "all nations" in process of Regenera- 
tion. We have seen them as "ten thousand times ten thousand 
and thousands of thousands" and as "a great multitude" in 
white linen which no man could number. 

This is the same sea into which the mountains sank and 
corrupted it with the carcasses of the slain, but now purified. 
We see it at different stages, just as we saw the four beasts 
changing to be the living creatures. We saw this sea twice in 
the millennium, where it is crystalline, and once at an earlier 
stage, where it was defiled, but now we see it fire blent, all 
mingled, with the word of God purifying it. At the first Pente- 
cost at Jerusalem the fire sat as flaming tongues on the heads 
of the apostles, and at the mystic Pentecost of the seals and 
trumpets fire was represented as being cast out of the temple 
upon the earth and as mingling with blood and hail, but now 
the once perturbed sea of humanity, then putrified with death 
like the rivers of Egypt, is fire blent as when the sun shines 
down into the sea. This is the sea of the world's victory over 
brute rule, and a once beastly world now standing with joy 
before the throne with Pentecostal harps, harping the glory 
of the Eegeneration. Everything is on an enlarged scale now 
and triumph fills the air. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 277 

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the 
song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty, righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of 
the Ages, who shall not fear Lord and glorify thy name for thou 
only are holy, for all the nations shall come and worship before 
thee for thy righteous acts have been made manifest. 

The time has come when the goodness of God is gladly 
acknowledged by the nations. This does not say that all indi- 
viduals will be spiritually saved, but that the nations will be 
under His rule, "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the 
earth as the waters cover the deep." It is a redeemed world, 
where the wicked even outwardly conform to Christ's reign. 

And after these things I saw, and the temple of the tabernacle of 
the testimony in heaven was opened and there came out of the 
temple the seven angels which had the seven plagues, arrayed in 
linen pure and bright and girded about their breasts with golden 
girdles. 

This is the second account we have had of the opening of 
this temple, but it is now described not as the opening of the 
temple simply, but it is greatly heightened in the form of 
expression. There it was "the temple of God in heaven," but 
now "the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven 
is open." There the ark of the covenant, which silently spoke 
for God, was seen in its place (xi, 19), but now the seven 
angels come out clad in white, "jeweled," as the Eevised has it, 
to execute the wdll of God on the disobedient. Here again 
is that rising into greater power and glory that so clearly 
marks these later series. 

The tabernacle belonged to the condition of the exodus and 
of sojourning through the wilderness; but w^hen the Jordan 
was crossed the tabernacle was folded away, merged into the 
temple, which is permanent. This points to a time when the 



278 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

tribulations and tlie patience of the kingdom are over, and 
the kingdom is triumphant and permanent. When this temple 
was opened by the seventh Trumpet it was attended by great 
voices in heaven, saying, "The Kingdom has come." That 
was on the positive side, but now, when it is shown again, it 
is for another purpose — to punish wickedness, etc. — as closing 
up the time of tribulation. This shows we are dealing with 
the same conditions of things, but looking to final results with 
the enemy defeated and subjugated. At every step there is an 
air of largeness leading up to that state of things we saw in 
the fourth chapter, called the Millennium, when the Elders 
and the four living creatures shall sit down in grateful praise 
before the throne to extol the majesty and the will of God. 
What a consoling thought it is to see these seven angels come 
out of the temple — that is, the church itself — coming out of 
its tribulation to execute divine retribution and to rule over 
the world in righteousness. This is telling us in these terms 
that the church will pour out the bowls of wrath on the very 
roots of sin and rebellion. 

These avenger angels come out of the temple, the new 
temple of the Regeneration. They are arrayed for their work, 
but who shall give them their bowls of wrath to pour out 
upon the roots of sin? 

And one of the four living creatures gave unto the seven angels 
seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who liveth forever and 
ever. 

What a surprise! One of the Four Living Creatures, repre- 
sentative of the world powers, the old enemy, now offering 
friendly offices, assisting the church! The old foe meeting 
the delegates of the chu.rch and handing to them the bowls of 
wrath of Almighty God to pour out on sin! The church and 
the world powers come together at last! This is exactly the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 279 

result shown by the seventh Trumpet. This is the first time 
they have come together since we saw them in the fruition, 
and so we are notified that we have again come to that state 
of affairs where the world powers succumb and obey and co- 
operate. The kingdom of men has become the kingdom of 
God and of His Christ. 

And the temple was filled with the smoke from the glory 
of God and from His power, and none was able to enter into the 
temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished. 

The dedication of Solomon's temple is the pattern that lies 
under this lesson, and" upon it the superscription of the 
redeemed world is now written before our eyes. The taber- 
nacle of the wilderness forever folded away, the journey ended, 
the promised land reached at last. These are the facts by 
which He is telling us of the end of the journey of time, and 
tribulation of the saints, a time that is nearing us rapidly 
noAv every day with increasing velocity of hastening and 
ominous events. 

Solomon's Temple on that happy day of its glorious dedi- 
cation is the shadow^graph on which is here inscribed the sub- 
stance — that is, the opening of that great temple which is 
now being measured and builded till it shall stand the delight 
of all nations and far greater than this present, middle and 
compromised state of the church. Ah! the w^orld will be 
glorious then. 

His ways with men will be no longer questioned. We have 
come to a high plain. Between this, our day, and that there 
must be great changes in the accepted ideas of Christ's right 
over governments. 

And none was able to enter into the temple till the seven 
plagues of the seven angels should be finished. 



280 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Wliy should tliey not be able to enter into it? It is because 
all are emulating each other now in doing the will of God. 
The church's long struggling has conquered and in conquering 
has lost her distinguishing traits and is now sunken from sight 
by the greater glory just as the rising sun puts out all the stars. 
The church once in tribulation has become the church in 
triumph, and the w^orld now emulates her example, and uni- 
versal uprising of the nations to convert brute power into 
brotherhood will for the time supersede or outshine the church 
so that one cannot tell church member from non-church mem- 
ber. The greater glory shall extinguish the lesser while the 
dedication is going on. What an expression of the greatness 
of God's glory! The church, once lost to the world in the 
wilderness, is now lost to sight in the smoke of its greater 
incense of praise. 

The story of Israel is retold in the shadowgraph and upon 
it is expressed the glorious time to come. Israel in bondage, 
then his exit, his journey and arrival in the promised land, 
and the temple built and dedicated with such glory that you 
cannot tell those inside from those outside, for the temple that 
is the church will be enveloped with a world of glory. From 
Jerusalem we start, and then through the Dark Ages we have 
gone and are still going, till we are delivered and the temple 
open, filled with incense, the whole world shall be as at the 
dedication of Solomon's temple. 

But we are asked what ground have we to expect such 
unlikely and impossible changes in the world? The promise 
of God. Then we have only to see what has been done to show 
how perfectly reasonable the hope. God's dealings with Israel 
were full of paradoxes such as these: 

1. How could a nation of freed slaves come forth out of a 
polytheistic nation, as Egypt, and themselves be monotheists? 

2. How could they become polytheistic in practice when 



on, THE RIVEN VEIL. 281 

they got to be a nation to themselves, their own law con- 
demning it? 

3. How could they be cured of polytheism while serving 
another polytheistic nation, as Babylon? 

4. How could the Jews, the narrowest and most exclusive 
people on earth, give to the Avorld its broadest and greatest 
reformer, Christ? 

5. Expecting a Messiah, how could they reject and crucify 
Him and continue to hold out against Him when the most 
enlightened nations accej)t and worship Him? 

6. How can the Gentiles, who hate and persecute the Jews, 
adore the Savior, born of a Jew woman? 

7. How could Christianity overthrow the Eoman govern- 
ment ? 

8. How could our present civilization come out of the Dark 



In the first place we must remind ourselves that this is 
the purpose and the outcome of this story, and that greatly 
changed conditions await the future of our onward march; 
though we may not yet see how it is to be accomplished, our 
Father knows and we work. 

The Eeformation came as from a restraint upon the world 
power merely permitting the sealing of God's servants and a 
replacement of the ark in its place, as already seen. In ttiis 
state we saw three mighty forces in the field. But here is a 
picture of the world powers having run their course, and having 
destroyed the Babylon they once served (chapters xvii and 
xviii), are now themselves brought under the will of the Lord 
and working with the saints in the regeneration. 

The rebuilding of the temple and the replacement there of 
the two witnesses in their places are given as the cause, and 
the independence of governments from the locust power gave 
the opportunity for increase and spread of the light. But 



282 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

here we meet conditions differing from those of the Eeforma- 
tion as they differed from the Dark Ages and from the first 
evangelization. In. the view just fallen of tlie Evangels we 
do not see a permissive attitude as in the Keformation, sealing 
in the forehead as if by sufferance of the enemy and in a 
subordinate position, but the messengers of Christ are aloft 
on high in midheaven, and flying from nation to nation among 
all tribes and tongues and peoples, etc., preaching above the 
housetops boldly, openly and triumphantly. 

Kow we see the world powers in new relations to the church. 
That is at a time yet to come, and upon the borders of which 
I think we now stand; the world powers will have come to 
their third estate and will help the church in causing "the 
wilderness to blossom as a rose," and this mighty co-operation 
will efface for the time the distinction so that none can dis- 
tinguish the temple of incense from the temple of justice and 
humanity. 

The world that knew not God, the world that crucified the 
Little Lamb, and that banished the most beloved exile is to 
come into accord with His purpose and in consonance with 
His church till the church has lost its distinguishing charac- 
teristics. To the first church the world power was a red 
dragon, a bloody murderer and slew our Lord and His fol- 
lowers; in the second they stood in a permissive and tolerant 
attitude, but in the third and last they themselves gave to 
the shining, jeweled angels of light from their own hand the 
bowls of God's wrath that shall completely "bruise the serpent's 
head." Such indeed is the lesson conveyed by these forms. 
But before this last condition can be had there is to be a 
reckoning of the world powers with their former liege, the 
king and kingdom of the locusts, and also another one with the 
followers of the Lamb. World powers that lend themselves to 



Ofl, THE RIVEN VEIL. 283 

the will of man as against the will of God are at enmity with 
God. 

The close relation of the Protestant governments to the 
Reformation is full of suggestion as related to this w^onderfnl 
story. As these were closely connected in their separation from 
the locust kingdom so they have continued in close relations. 
They each took one full step from that power. The govern- 
ments have assumed in the main a position of toleration to- 
ward all wdthout regard to former or to present differences 
in religion. In our own America, at least, Protestantism is 
so closely allied to political and coramercial power that the 
churches are a sort of reflex or image, so far as public and 
organized immorality is concerned, and in those cities where 
the locusts have the power the state of things is even worse. 
Even upon such a question as the licensing instead of suppress- 
ing of gambling and liquor dealing and now prize fighting, by 
government, there is, I believe, no practical difference between 
the church and the state. It has been declared that in every 
state where the liquor power demands high license, low license, 
or local option, the great parties in politics accept the policy, 
and that the churches in these several states generally permit 
the same ^Dolicy at least by refusing to maintain discipline over 
their offending members. If this is true in any degree it is a 
damaging fact against the close and hurtful connection of the 
church with the sinning world power. Here is a present state 
of things which this book shows to be an intermediate stage 
and transitory in its very nature. It is reflection upon such 
facts that leads one to expect very great changes. For it is 
manifest that nothing like a millennium can ever be had while 
the church is adulterously following the world powers, to do 
or to permit the worst of evils to society. Governments in the 
lowest stage, seen in the toes of the great image, that lie 
prone and divided on the earth, as at present they do, may 



284 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

not possess great governing powers, but such as tliey have 
cannot be used to abet crimes upon society nor under any 
pretense permit them to exist for a money or other considera- 
tion. It is here written that when the new evangel shall pro- 
claim, he will say: "Babylon is fallen! is fallen!" It fell 
first with the Eeformation and secession of governments from 
its power. But it must fall again; and in America, at least, 
it seems to be getting ready for it. Now the world powers, 
it is declared, will do this, completely destroying it, and the 
fact is here dramatized where one of those four world creatures 
that has six wings and is all composed of eyes is seen to take 
part. One of the four living creatures we saw around the 
throne in the millennium "gave unto the seven angels seven 
golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who liveth forever and 
ever." The world powers are to act with the church of God 
in visiting His judgments upon all the wicked institutions of 
the world. It is so represented here. We stand at this hour 
in that middle compromised and uncertain state resting upon 
an armistice with the powers of darkness. 

There is a feeling at this hour that the world stands upon 
the brink of a pulsating crater. The state is too religious to 
oppress any sect, and the sects are too worldly to convert gov- 
ernment into Christian statehood. The people afraid of their 
rulers, and, as always hitherto, the rulers afraid of the people; 
painful hesitancy! The perturbed condition of the nations; 
their instability; the obstruction by obsolete things once re- 
garded as dispensable furtherances; the discontent; the new 
agencies of power, speed and facility in every direction; the 
close alliances of nations once strangers and far away; the 
strange positions and transpositions of all the affairs of the 
world at this moment are all signs of approaching changes. 
Crime, too, is organizing, and all seem to feel we must meet 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 



in some final contest of Armageddon the inevitable settlement 
of old accounts. 

Tlie present denominations, surviving from tlieir first and 
well-begun work, seem to be obsolete as to the new and inevit- 
able conditions of tlie world. Their early work created im- 
proved conditions in the world, which, in their later state, they 
are in poor condition to forward. The malign conditions of 
the world powers require a new alignment of Christian forces 
that will compel government to be what God designed it to 
be, '^a praise to them that do good and a punishment to them 
that do evil." 

We are entering upon the third estate of the Christian age 
and the wondrous aspect of affairs is full of possibilities. The 
improved methods of travel and for the spread of intelligence, 
together with the great awakening of the human mind through- 
out the world, offer the opportunities that should awaken and 
arm for the fray the entire Christian world as never before. 

His church cannot rest with having simply effected a divorce 
of itself and of the world powers from Babylon, any more 
than the world powers can rest with this half-way measure 
with Babylon. 

The world powers are to wheel into an attitude of hostility 
to medieval political ecclesiasticism, and God's people are to 
form in line to send out the angels of truth to accomplish their 
part through the testimony of the Christ. And with this same 
sword of truth are to stand up against the world powers to 
convert governments into Christian statehood and Christian 
commerce into Christian brotherhood, till no flag shall float 
over a slave, nor slavemaker of any kind, till no ship shall bear 
as commerce that which destroys life or degrades character. 

The author of this work recently put forth in the public 
prints as a proposed offset and negative to organized crime and 
organized consenting to crime, the following pledge of divorce: 



286 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Overcomer's Yow: "What I ought not to do as a Christian 
of my own accord I will not do in any combination with 
others." That might set free a better conscience and lay the 
corner-stone for a new ethical movement in honor of Christ. 

There is a brighter day ahead, the last best state of the 
world. We are nearing the last days of the great tribulation 
to be followed by the Eegeneration. With dogma, ritualism, 
and rationalism, etc., as forms of religion forever abolished, 
and great free Christian men and women following the Lamb 
withersoever He goeth, keeping His commands freely and in- 
telligently, with no interference by any earthly authority, ad- 
ministering the law on the all-comprehensive plan of "love 
the Lord, thy God, with all thy mind, might and strength, and 
thy neighbor as thyself," what a glory envelops the very 
thought of it! 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 287 

CHAPTER XYI. 
Revelation XVT. 
THE AVENGERS. 

The Avengers follow the Trumpeters by marks of identity 
not to be mistaken. We recognize we have the apostles again, 
only in changed names that suit their changed office. We 
have known them as Disciples, as Apostles, as Stars, as Angels, 
as Trumpeters, as Thunderers and now as bowls of wrath or 
Avengers. In all these we see the several parts and relations 
that belonged to them as Christ's chosen representatives stand- 
ing always next to Him. 

The Avenger series has seven parts, and in addition we have 
three supplementary parts, just as we had in the Trumpet 
series. These supplemental parts are the "angel of the waters," 
the "voice from the altar," and the "voice from the throne." 
Not only do the seven Avengers follow the Trumpeters in their 
number, and in having supplementary parts, but the bowls which 
they empty are poured upon the same objects that engaged the 
Trumpets and in the same order, only as four of the Trumpets 
announced disaster to the heavenly things, these all inflict judg- 
ments and woes upon the worldly. Like the Trumpets the 
Avengers are in groups of four and three, only the group of 
three comes first as in the letters and the Evangels and there 
is no opposition between the groups, both bringing heavenly 
triumphs. They are disastrous to the world powers and to the 
wicked. 

Conceding the Avengers are carrying out the negative and 
judgment side of the Great Commission, we have perfect har- 
mony of parts and of relations at once established, and the 



288 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

pattern continries to guide us. The first bowl is poured upon 
the earth, tlie second upon tlie sea, the third upon the foun- 
tains of waters, etc., exactly following the order of the Trum- 
peters, showing they belong to the same system, only revers- 
ing the order so far as to make them all calamitous to the 
wicked. This show^s that we are passing over the same sub- 
ject matter, that we are doubling the ground and are follow- 
ing the same pattern to show a different result upon the world 
powers from the first. Much as we desire dates here, and to 
bring these to the order of chronology and personalities, we 
confess to a strong sense of pleasure in the coherency and 
tenacity of the treatment. We shall, however, notice that the 
symbols used in this series are more abstract, more attenuated. 
They point more to the wrath of God upon the sources of 
sin, than upon persons and nations. 

Our language and our thoughts are too gross and materialistic 
to see and feel the full force of these subtilized symbols at 
this time, but there is every probability that in a day of 
greater ethicg,! refinement we shall see and feel the full force 
of them. These symbols represent a state of things in the 
spiritual world that corresponds to the power and mystery of 
electricity in physical. Through a little wire an energy that 
we can neither see, nor smell, nor taste, nor lay our hand upon, 
is exerted that exceeds a hundred times the strength of a horse 
or of the wire's own tensile resistance that conveys it. When 
the human mind is once turned upon the metaj^hysical and 
spiritual world as it has been upon the material, we may see 
more clearly and feel more pungently the deep spiritual im- 
port of these judgments. 

We are surely in the twilight of that day when these awful 
retributions will be understood, though language cannot now 
nor ever will tell those "groanings which cannot be uttered.'' 
They belong to a deeper world than this. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 289 

The day was when the childish thought of crisping flesh 
was the most dreaded of all punishment^ bnt no punishment 
can compare with that far deeper pain that may fall npon the 
spirit and sonl. The new conditions rising in the world may 
be the live wires that shall give net only life and light, but 
also death to all who fall athwart their mighty current. 

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven 
angels, Go ye and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into 
the earth. And the first went and poured out his bowl into the 
earth and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men 
which had the mark of the beast and which worshiped his image. 

This description of this first judgment is so general as to 
defy anything like detail. But beast worship will be punished. 

The earth itself becomes unbearable to those who have long 
abused its blessings. All that they sought to possess only that 
they might misuse it has now turned against them and they 
must suffer the results of their own evil doing. ^Ye have had 
judgments all the way, but these are the last and the greatest. 
This one is a reply to the first Trumpet which mingled the 
blood of the martyrs with the preaching. The present com- 
pressed state of the world is such that men must henceforth 
act and live imder more uniform conditions as one great family 
to rise or to fall together. 

The forces are now at work that are to destroy the condi- 
tions that have governed and oppressed the world hitherto. 
We are trem.bling upon the brink of changes which no human 
calculations can foreshadow as to what new conditions shall 
rule the world. Selfishness still continues to rule in politics 
and commerce. These conditions can give way only under 
great pressure and that pressure is growing more intense every 
day as personal rights come more and more into view and are 
better understood. 

The great locust plague was the first, and the great military 
19 



290 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

plague was the second^ and the third plague will end in the 
complete overthrow of beast dominion. Though according to 
John's teachings judgments always follow as the negative of 
salvation, yet these are the last and great judgments of God 
and we may safely refer their time to the three greater trum- 
pets which sound the three woes. Here is a great heightening 
of judgments equal to the heightened power of the preaching. 

THE SECOND BOWL. 

And the second poured cut his bowl into the sea and it became 
as the blood of a dead man and every living soul died, even the 
things that were in the sea. 

The brighter grows the light the deeper grows the shadow. 
When the mountain sank burning into the sea a third part of 
the creatures and of the shipping were destroyed but now the 
whole sea becomes as the blood of a dead man, a boiling mass 
of putrefaction and every creature is dead — complete revenge 
upon rebellion. 

This is a total destruction' of world power. It is the story 
of the pale horse told again in different symbolism and as pro- 
ceeding from the apostles or saints as it then proceeded from 
the Christ. But as the sea was then a symbol of the people, 
the present looks more to the sources of sin and of brute power 
in them that "dwell upon the earth." 

THE THIRD BOWL. 

And the third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the 
• fountains of the waters and it (or they) became blood. 

Using the singular for the plural which occurs so often assists 
us in keeping the essential unity of the subject. There is a 
constant efPort to preserve all the minor distinctions under one 
head in perfect unity for there are but two great spirits in this 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 291 

conflict and all the aids and accessories on the respective sides 
are of one nature and one destiny. 

The third bowl calls our attention to the East^ just as the 
third Trumpet did, and the calamity is not now as then a 
third part, as where the heavenly interests w^ere hurt, but now 
it is against the world and is total. Our hearts turn to Armenia 
and our prayers to God for her at this trying hour. 

And I heard the angel of the waters saying, Righteous *art thou 
which art and which wast, thou holy one, because thou didst thus 
judge; for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and 
blood hast thou given them to drink, they are worthy. And I heard 
the altar saying. Yea, Lord God the Almighty, true and righteous 
are thy judgments. 

The same wide sweep of judgment is seen here as in the 
second bowl. The angel of the waters is only expressing a 
sentiment in regard to the righteous retributions of God, and 
the altar as representing those wdio have suffered martyrdom 
for the cause of truth. That voice of crying from beneath 
the altar is now satisfied and responds with a great "amen;^^ 
God has given His enemies blood to drink and the altar jus- 
tifies the act. Their vindication is complete. The retribution 
is awful and final. God speed the day! 

THE FOURTH BOWL. 

And the fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun and it was 
given it to scorch men with fire, and men were scorched with great 
heat and they blasphemed the name of God which hath the power 
over these plagues and they repented not to give Him glory. 

The enemy was able to put the sun out at one time, but 
now its rays have returned with scorching heat upon him. 
The sun is the great ^''savor of life unto life in this physical 
world and also of death unto death/' So it is in the spiritual 



292 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

world. United witli God by faith, the light of His testimony 
enlightens the mind and warms the heart, but separated from 
Him by disobedience those same rays work death. When that 
great second woe fell npon the world by the army of horsemen, 
John said notwithstanding that men died of such a plague, 
still they repented not of their transgressions. 

But here when a mightier judgment is visited upon the very 
heart and root of sin, still they not only refuse to repent but 
return blasphemy for all His goodness. It is clearly intimated 
here that the wicked have taken notice of all these judgments, 
showing that they are not local but general. The wicked are 
hardened more and more. The power that hurts men is the 
will of God, and is expresssed in His word. It was the tes- 
timony of the two witnesses that tormented them that dwell 
on the earth. Over their dead bodies they rejoiced and at 
the sight of their resurrection they took fright, and that word 
is getting brighter all the time and still they resist it and re- 
pent not. We shall punish the wicked more when we raise 
our own standard of Christian living. 

THE FIFTH BOWL. 

And the fifth poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast, 
and his kingdom was darkened and they gnawed their tongues for 
pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their 
pains and their sores, and they repented not of their works. 

The fifth trumpet opened the pit of the abyss, the seat of 
Satanic power, and now the fifth bowl is poured out on this 
seat. The smoke from that pit darkened the sun and the air 
and brought on the dark night and now a retribution in kind 
is visited upon it. The locusts who devoured all the earth 
gnaw their tongues. As Egypt was plagued to compel it to 
loosen its grip on God's people by the visitation of sores, etc., 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 293 

SO they are here again punished to cause them to let go their 
sins. 

What a great variety of symbols we have for expressing these 
punishments upon the wicked. They are frightened and run 
away to hide and call upon the rocks and hills to fall upon 
them and they frighten and flee at the rising of the two dead 
witnesses. They are afflicted with sores, and the sea in which they 
live becomes blood, and blood is given them to drink and 
they are sunken in the lake of blood where horses swim to their 
bridle bits, their rivers run blood, they are scorched with great 
heat, their kingdom is in darkness, they gnaw their tongues, 
being in anguish with pains and sores, they are led by unclean 
spirits like frogs, and hailstones fall upon them from heaven 
about the weight of a talent, etc., and at last are cast into a 
lake of fire and brimstone. 

These illustrate again in how highly figurative and Oriental 
sense all these are to be taken^ not that they are less real but 
beyond our power to perfectly understand, just as far as the 
heavenly things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor 
has entered into the heart of man to fully comprehend. . The 
time is drawing nearer when this will be a hard world for 
sinners to live in. Hiding places will soon bring a high pre- 
mium, a time when every rogue's gallery will not only have 
the picture of every criminal, but his measurements, that tell 
upon him with such certainty as no one can escape. Our 
means of sending intelligence can catch the flying rogue, and 
crime will be hedged in very closely after awhile. The dark 
ages have passed away and they are as great strangers in a 
world of light as God's saints were in the age of darkness. 
They gnaw their tongues. Alas, they were born too late. The 
kingdom of God come is an awful pain to them. It is said 
here for the second time that they repented not of their works. 
Such will not repent though one rose from the dead. 



294 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

THE SIXTH BOWL. 

And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates 
and the water thereof was dried up that the way might be made 
ready for the kings that come from the sunrising. 

The sixth bowl brings up again the Euphrates as did the 
sixth trumpet. As the draining of? of the Euphrates left a 
dry bed so that the armies of the East under Cyrus were en- 
abled to enter Babylon and take the city, so shall be the sixth 
bowl of wrath upon spiritual Babylon. 

The kings of the East, or of the sunrising in this case, 
mean the Christian kings, the kingdom of kings and priests 
who have risen to world ascendancy. That river of lust that 
gave "Mystery Babylon^^ all her glory will be drained off and 
the wicked city will be taken. The angel that bore on high 
the seal of the living God is called the angel of the East or 
of the sunrising, and He, Christ, is called the bright and morn- 
ing star, the star of the East. 

We are now approaching rapidly that consummation, and 
as we look upon this ever heightening glory, what a heightening 
of hope also to the believing soul! The kingdom has come 
out of its long tribulation and patience, and now, like a con- 
quering army from the East, they march in and possess the 
great city and put down oppression forever. "The government 
shall be upon His shoulders." 

And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the 
mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three 
unclean spirits, as it were, frogs, for they are spirits of devils 
working signs, which go forth to the kings of the whole world to 
gather them together unto the great day of God the Almighty. 
Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth 
his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And they 
gathered them together into a place which is called in the Hebrew 
Harmageddon 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 295 

Harmageddon was the field of decisive conflict in Israel. 
It was tlie mountain of Megiddo. There Gideon and Barak 
had triumphed by faith in God over Israel's foes. 

It is the pattern on which this decisive conflict against the 
powers of darkness will be fought and from which there will 
be no going back forever. The battle of Harmageddon is now 
being fought out. It is a battle of principles, and bloody wars 
are. its accidents only. About the most remarkable thing in 
this wondrous book is the abrupt parenthesis that interrupts 
this passage. 

Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and 
keepeth his garments lest he walk naked and they see his shame. 

ISTothing could be more decisive. Here is both a warning 
and a promise as in time of great danger. It sounds like a 
startling voice at midnight and like a clap of thunder from a 
clear sky. It is a sharp interjection, a piercing cry of caution. 

Its position is full of suggestion not only by its immediate 
relations but by its more remote, in fact, to all the great 
series. Of the four series, the Seals, the Trumpets, the Evan- 
gels and the Avengers, it is the last of them, and of the seven 
last plagues it is the last, and it is at the last end of the last 
one. The church at Sardis had a name to live. It had that 
outward well being that opiates the conscience and puts it to 
rest. It was to this church that Christ wTote, "Behold I 
come as a thief." And it was to the rich lukewarm church 
at Laodicea He said "Because thou art neither cold nor hot 
I will spew you out of my mouth" and "thou knowest not that 
thou art wretched and poor and miserable and blind and naked." 

When the opposition from the powers of wickedness shall 
abate and the tribulation and that kind of prompting to Chris- 
tian activity shall die away, then comes this sharp cut as from 
a lance in a time of lukewarmness and apathy to announce that 



296 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the bridegroom cometli. When we shall say Christ has con- 
quered this world and made it blossom like a rose and we shall 
begin to ascribe our wealth and peace to onr own wisdom then 
we are warned by this stinging caution to be faithful^ to watch. 
Already this very state of things abounds. "Behold He cometli 
and every eye shall see Him and they that pierced Him and 
all the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of Him." He 
will come as lightning comes out of the East. 

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 

Not only do we have a great wealth of symbols in these 
Evangels and Avengers going to show the raising of heavenly 
power,, but a corresponding lowering of that power of evil 
which in such times must show its worst forms. At the times 
when God has put forth His mightiest power Satan has also 
risen in extraordinary exertions to counteract it. It is a strange 
but awful fact that great goodness excites great wickedness; 
that a pure and noble character is a mark for the malice and 
for the darts of Satan, that as the saints get purer and higher, 
sinners wax worse and worse. 

When Moses went into the court of Egypt to claim deliv- 
erance for his people, he was withstood by the magicians of 
Pharaoh, who wrought similar signs to counteract the impres- 
sion upon the king's mind. This they did three times, but 
when it came to the fourth miracle, wrought by Moses, the ma- 
gicians gave it up and told the king that this one was from 
God, and they could not do it, but Pharaoh's heart was hard- 
ened, and he held on to his slaves. 

"As Jannes and Jambrese withstood the truth of Moses in 
the court of Pharaoh, so do these resist the truth." When the 
Christ came into the world there was a like satanic manifesta- 
tion of the evil spirits that cried out: "Why hast thou come 
to torment us before our time," Here is the last time. It is 



on, THE RIVEN VEIL. 297 

the time of the sixth Triimpet and of the sixth bowl of wrath 
and at the further end of it^ and just before the seventh Trum- 
pet shall blow and end all. Here we have Satanic manifes- 
tations also. The three spirits refer to the three beasts, all 
evil, from whose mouths they are emitted. It is a mockery 
of the divine trinity. Neither does it import anything as to 
whether they came out of the three mouths or out of one, as 
the word of God on Pentecost proceeded from one, even Peter, 
and yet was the word of all the apostles. The law of opposites 
guides us here. This has the characteristics of another dia- 
bolical Pentecost, the going out of frog spirits, filthy^ lyiiig 
and deceiving. The former was an opening of the pit of the 
abyss, from which came smoke and locusts to devour and to 
sting, etc. This follows the Eegeneration Pentecost as that 
one did the Reformation Pentecost. These spirits, like frogs, 
evangelists, that go forth, missionaries to the kings of the 
earth, cold, scientific agnostics. Not now. to sting and de- 
vour, but to pretend to miracles. They are the spirits of de- 
mons. They are gathering up the world kings to war against 
the Christian kings. They that dwell upon the earth are to 
meet them that dwell in heaven, in one decisive Waterloo. 
The devilish trio will use pretended miracles to accomplish its 
bad ends. 

THE SEVENTH BOWL. 

And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air and there came 
a great voice out of the temple from the throne saying It is done. 

It was into or upon the air, simply emptied, without any 
direct effect. In the opening of the seventh seal there was 
silence, only silence, in heaven for about the space of half an 
hour, and with the blowing of the seventh trumpet there was 
the shout of victory, the "kingdom come." The last trumpet 
and the last bowl combine upon a point of great disturbance 
as if at the close. They describe the same general fact from 



298 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

their opposite points of view as trumpeters of salvation and 
as avengers of wrath. 

And there were lightnings and voices and thunders, and there 
was a great earthquake such as there was not since there were men 
upon the earth so great an earthquake and so mighty. 

Here we have again the fact of the sixth seal told with a 
heightened aspect corresponding to its point of view. We are 
not reading of a different but only of the same fact differently 
related. In the Seals and Evangels there is a greater simplicity 
and distinctness of parts, while in the Trumpets and Avengers 
there is a more terrible and commingled aspect to what is 
done as where adverse elements are face to face in battle. 

We saw the two-point view from which the two witnesses 
were said to be both in sackcloth still alive, and as dead trophies 
lying in the street, and the church as hidden under God's care 
in the wilderness, and as sunken in sin, buried, trodden under 
foot, etc. This double view rests upon and is sustained. by 
the two points of view^ given respectively to Nebuchadnezzar 
and to Daniel of the world powers and how they were to be 
overcome. 

And the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of 
the nations fell and Babylon the Great was remembered in the sight 
of God to give unto her the cup of wine of the fierceness of his 
wrath. 

But at the rise of what we call the Reformation the great 
city fell "a tenth part," but here it is divided into three parts 
and the cities of the nations fell, that is the state religions 
that follow the great city called Mystery Babylon, for city is 
the symbol for church. When the bowls of wrath had swept 
av/ay beast rule, they swept away all the religions that rest 
upon it. 



6% THE RIVEN VEIL. 



^99 



And every island fled away and the mountains were not found, 
and great hail, every stone about the weight of a talent, cometii 
down out of heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because 
of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof is exceeding great. 

Thus ends a picture of God's terrible judgments upon the 
wicked and upon wickedness in the abstract. As showing how 
all literalities are excluded from possible use, we notice that 
these punishments are as sores on their bodies, and as being 
suffocated in a sea of blood and scorched with the hot rays 
of the sun and are crushed and killed by falling hail stones 
that fall upon them, etc., thus making a literal interpretation 
impossible. Even the mountains and the islands which they 
thought would still be their abode where they might live in 
sin, have fled away and left them without a place to live in, 
and trying to hide, they call upon the rocks and mountains 
to fall upon them and hide them from the offended face of 
their Eedeemer. 

The hail that falls upon them is in great stones about the 
weight of a talent. Both the punishments of Pharaoh come 
to view and the defeat of Bethhoron (Josh, x, 1-11), where 
God rained hail on His foes. How great shall be the remorse 
and anguish of those who reject the Father of mercies who 
love not His praise but return evil for good, blasphemy for 
blessing, and hatred for loving kindness. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

The wicked flee from fright: Afflicted with sores; in a sea of 
blood; drink blood; their rivers are blood; scorched with heat; 
their kingdom is darkness; they gnaw their tongues; deceived by 
unclean spirits; hailstones fall upon them. 

Slain in battle: Trodden in winepress of God's wrath; call upon 
rocks and mountains to fall upon them; are cast into a lake of fire 
and brimstone, etc. 



300 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Revelation XVII. 

JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT HARLOT. 

Christ hath a bride. First seen she is arrayed in the full 
orb of heavenly glory, clad with the snn, the moon nnder her 
feet and her head adorned with a crown of twelve stars, and 
in soul-travail to give birth to the heirs of Salvation. 

The beast also has a woman, a fallen, proud and drunken 
harlot, "mother of the harlots and abominations of the earth.^' 
Eve, fairest flower of Eden, angel of its fragrant bowers, but 
through the tempter^s guile sinned against heaven and went 
out from the presence of God to toil in the wilderness and to 
bring forth a murderer who slew his Godfearing and faithful 
brother. So, too, this fair woman, born of that blest Pente- 
cost, too soon went out from her paradise of purity into the 
wilderness of sin and there gave birth to murderers who slew 
the spiritual seed, "who kept the testimony of Jesus." In 
the wilderness we here find her dismantled of her true glory, 
now a tawdry harlot apostate and to be destroyed. 

There is a likeness of order here, for as the story about the 
fall of the pure church followed the Seals and Trumpets, so 
the story of the false church follows the other two comple- 
mentary series, the Evangels and Avengers, which record the 
triumphs of heaven and the fall of beast rule. Here we meet 
that fallen church. She has lost her heavenly heritage and 
boasts of a lordly succession through the beast trio to which 
she is wedded. 

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven 
howls and spake with me saying, Come hither and I will show thee 



OiR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 301 

the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters 
with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication and they 
that dwell upon the earth were made drunken with the wine of her 
fornication, and he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, 
and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet colored beast full of names 
of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns. 

In explaining the relations of the harlot to the beast power 
there is not only the same painstaking care we observed in 
explaining the relations of the holy woman to the heavenly 
power but also exactly the same method. The harlot is both 
successor to and rnler over brute power, and that power comes 
from the dragon who deceived Eve in the Garden of the Lord 
and who songht the life of the infant Jesns and who stood 
before the pnre church at Jerusalem to devour her spiritual 
seed. When the beast first appeared he was said to have been 
spotted but now he is scarlet. The reason of this change is 
seen in the fact that when seen alone his spots represented 
his double character, secular and religious, but now the woman 
represents the religious side of his nature and so both yides 
are show^n in separate symbols, but are of the same color, that 
is, the same nature. They are treated in the closest relations 
and then separately on exactly the same method that we saw 
employed in giving !he relations between Christ and His church 
on the -heavenly side. The beast represents the total of brute 
power and imparts it to the harlot, a parody on the power 
and glory which Christ imparted to His church. The harlot 
sits upon the beast and also upon his seven heads, and upon 
seven mountains, as well as upon many waters, which are 
many peoples, all symbols of beast power in its different mani- 
festations. 

Using so many s}Tiibols to show the same essential truth 
in so many phases affords a large amount of information &.nd 
does away with the possibility of our taking them in a literal 



302 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

sense. Such errors as that "the many waters" mean the Medi- 
terranean, or that the "seven mountains" mean the seven heaps 
of earth on which Eome sits, or that the Beast is any person 
as Nero or Napoleon, etc., is rendered impossible. The woman 
has subdued the beast and she sits upon all his heads and 
upon all the peoples, tribes and nations, etc. 

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked 
with gold and precious stone and pfearls, having in her hand a 
golden bowl full of abominations, even the unclean things of her 
fornication, and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Baby- 
lon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and of the abominations of the 
earth. 

See how her putting on of Jewels confesses the loss of true 
glory. This picture of the fallen woman is as dreadful and 
repulsive as that of the holy woman was ineffably glorious. 
Her hand holds out a cup of abominations with which she 
has corrupted the kings and all that dwell upon the earth. 
She carries her name upon her forehead. She is lost to the 
sense of shame. This is Babylon again. The first Babylon 
on the Euphrates held all world power and held God's people 
in bondage, so this one claims to have all power and she held 
the Christian saints in world bondage for a long dark time. 
The heavenly woman was mother of virgins and of martyrs, 
while this one is mother of harlots and abominations of the 
earth. 

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints 
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus and when 1 saw her I 
wondered with a great wonder; and the angel said unto me, where- 
fore didst thou wonder. I will tell thee the mystery of the woman 
and of the beast that carrieth her which hath the seven heads and 
ten horns. 

What a state of the world! The ruling harlot drunk on the 
blood of saints and the kings and people drunk from her cup 



{ 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 303 

of fornications. Again John tells ns his emotion on beholding 
this strange and awful sight. He says, "I wondered with a 
great wonder/' and of this the angel guide took notice and 
said to the seer, "Wherefore didst thou wonder? I will tell 
thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carrieth 
her.'' He explains the "mystery" of the stars and candlesticks 
and of the harlot and beast. Those not explained are easily 
implied by their relations, etc. The only symbols explained 
are those that pertain to the true church and the false. 

The beast thou sawest was and is not, and is about to come up 
out of the abyss, and to go into perdition. And they that dwell 
on the earth shall wonder, they whose name hath not been written 
in the book of life from the foundation of the world when they be- 
hold the beast how that he was and is not and shall come. 

The origin and doom of the brute are given first, just as 
on the other side in the first chapter we saw Christ risen from 
the dead and become the Alpha and the Omega. The beast 
is about to come up out of the pit. This is the prediction of 
antichrist that occupies so large a place in both John's and 
Paul's writings. He will ascend from the pit to do his work, 
he will open his i^it and send forth his apostles and after this 
he will go into perdition. To come up out of the abyss would 
seem to be something dilterent from coming up out of the 
sea, but it is only a deeper expression for the same fact. The 
words ^Tie was and is not," etc., rest on the facts about Christ's 
absence, etc., for we have seen that every description of the 
beast finds its meaning by opposition to Christ, just as the 
dragon is opposed to God and the two-horned beast is op- 
posed to the Holy Spirit and the harlot to the bride, etc. This 
point is further brought out in the words: 

And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, they whose name 
hath not been written in the book of life from the foundation of 



304 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the world when they behold the beast, how he was, and is not and 
shall come (or be present). 

In the first place this is descriptive of the beast and it de- 
scribes his likeness or his assumed likeness to the acts of Christ. 
The primary reference of everything in this book is to Christ 
as the Alpha and the Omega. We have jnst had the ascension 
and descent of the beast and we have seen that he was put 
to death in one head, and raised to life again, and now we see 
a mock of another part which Christ bore. The beast people 
make as much wonder over it as they did over the wonders 
wrought by the false prophet. It is a parody on the surprise 
which Christ gave His disciples by His resurrection from the 
dead after a short absence. They were scattered like sheep 
when the shepherd was smitten and Peter, the leader, said, "I 
go a fishing and the other apostles say we will go with yon." 

And the w^omen had taken sweet spices to embalm the body 
when the glad new^s came that He had risen from the dead, and 
Peter and John ran with their might to the sepnlcher to find 
the great surprise verified. Christ had several times alluded 
to His temporary absence from the disciples and His return 
to them. All these allusions are given in John^s gospel and 
they drew very marked comment from His enemies and also 
from His disciples. 

"A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little 
while and ye shall see me because I go to the Father." Then said 
some of His disciples among themselves, "What is this He saith 
unto us, a little wdiile and ye shall see me, and again a little 
while and ye shall not see me, w^e cannot tell what He sayeth," 
John XV, 16. AVe have in another place explained what was 
alluded to by the death and revival of one of the beast's heads, 
that the imperial headship of Eome expired and was re-estab- 
lished. Now this is supplemented by the fact that he w^ent 
away a little while in simulation of Christ's absence and came 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 305 

back again, and that tliey that dwell on the earth shall be sur- 
prised, rather that they admire and praise Him in this. It is 
a parody or imitation on the absence of Christ and on the 
wonder of the disciples to see Him reappear as He did, rising 
from the dead and appearing again. When we remember it 
was John who gave ns all those references to Christ's tempo- 
rary absence, five in all, and how deeply it impressed him, 
the explanation is satisfactory. It fills ont the parts acted by 
Christ by a counterpart of simulations. The head of divine 
government having suffered death and risen from the dead 
after a little time, so it is ascribed to the worldlings that their 
destroyer and deceiver, the beast, was temporarily absent by 
a death in one of his heads and lived again and in that they 
wonder and praise him. 

This all goes to show how persistently a merely worldly pro- 
fession will adhere to idolatrous worship through all deceptions. 
Vv^e have found nowhere else so terrible a warning against all 
beast rule and beast worship or man fearing as this. 

Here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are 
seven mountains on which the woman sitteth and they are seven 
kings; the five are fallen, the one is, and the other is yet to come. 

The head that had not yet come is the Papal and the head then 
present was the Imperial. Five forms had fallen. They were 
then living under the sixth or imperial form of Eoman Eule. 
This is all descriptive of Eome. The fallen woman was heir 
to the totality of world power, having all the power of the 
beast and the Dragon, and she sat upon all the heads or forms 
of government in this sense, though five had passed away. The 
beast that is to come will tarry a little while. 

And the beast that was, and is not, is also an eighth and is of the 
seven and goeth into perdition. 

Here is another manifestation of brute power not hitherto 
20 



306 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

seen in this book but seen in the book of Daniel. It differs 
from all the others only as ^^an eighth" for "it is of the seven" 
that is like them and of the essentiall} brnte nature. Now 
the four universal monarchies that represented the sum total 
of all world power and illustrated it, found a successor in the 
beast and then in the beastly harlot, but we have seen in our 
own day all these ended and the harlot stripped of the last 
vestige of secular power and we still have brute governments, 
or brute power out of the same old stuff. This remaining beast 
power is what is here called an "eighth" and is to be destroyed. 
It is not Eoman in the sense here used but brute power in 
general remaining diffused in the world waiting the triumphs 
of Christ to end it and to establish Christian statehood, the 
kingdom of Christ and of God. 

And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which have 
received no kingdom as yet, but receive authority as kingdoms with 
the beast for one hour. These have one mind and they give their 
power and authority unto the beast. These shall war against the 
Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is Lord of Lords 
and king of kings; and they also shall overcome that are with him 
called and chosen and faithful. 

The ten kingdoms or dependencies of the Eoman Empire 
are here alluded to. It has hitherto been thought necessary 
to point out and name these ten kingdoms and there has been 
some diversity of opinion as to which of these dependencies 
ought to be properly regarded as the "ten" alluded to. But 
this is mistaking the method and hunting for a numeral "ten" 
instead of a symbol "ten." It is the symbol and not the num- 
eral we want in order to identification. It is not the fact, pri- 
marily, but the nature and relati'ons of them he describes. 
It is not so essential that we identify Eome as in opposition 
to other powers as that we identify it by its hostile relations to 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 307 

the kingdom of God. This is the supreme point. This is 
the fact that lies at the root of all oppositions. 

Eome is presented to ns b}^ a method that shows iis all that 
is Roman in its relations to the Christ, all else is mere inci- 
dence. The numeral value does not need to hold good. It is 
secondary. To attempt a numeral identification is a mistake. 
A\Tiile the prophecy is trying to identify the essential oneness 
we have been trying to identify the formal and literal. The 
attempts to identify Eome by the seven heaps of earth on which 
the city stood, or by the ten kingdoms, would be as useless as 
denying the allusions to the apostles and churches and Holy 
Spirit, because they come in the number seven. This does not 
deny there may have been just ten of these kingdoms in the 
Roman Empire, but this book does not cite them to show that 
it could not be any other power, but rather that it cannot be 
of any other nature than hostile to Christ. This has been 
thought to be an irrefutable proof of Roman identity, and the 
provinces named by Sir Isaac Xewton as the ten, have been 
accepted quite generally. These ten kingdoms in Rome are 
in symbol the ten toes in the great image of [Nebuchadnezzar's 
dream and the ten horns of the Dragon and of the Beast. 

Here is the meaning of the ten horns of the beast and of 
the dragon, for the angel is here explaining to John what this 
beast and the woman mean. The identification and impugn- 
ment are terrible and the succession of beast power is sure. 
The Roman government has ten kingdoms, and these are the 
ten horns of the beast and of the dragon and they are the 
ten toes of the great image and these all rest upon a pre- 
tense of divine authority in the ten commands of God given 
to Moses for the government of His people. The dragon and 
beast assume to exercise these powers, and it is the overthrow 
of this usurpation that Christ has come and about which the 
whole story relates, 



308 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Here is the root of this great parody. It has its rise in 
the self assertion of sinful man to rule himself, and to throw 
off God's rule over him, and hence we have in these manifesta- 
tions of beast power the symbol ten, which is the sign of all 
heavenly power in political or world rule. The ten horns rep- 
resent a parody or mock of the ten commandments of God 
and the seven heads are a parody on the symbol seven as claim- 
ing all religious authority and spiritual fruition. The entire 
scope brings us to the first great victory, the beast power, Pagan 
Eome, destroyed, then holding power by simulating Christ's 
religion. Christ's first great conquest is to cast out the dragon, 
then the spotted beast succeeds to the throne and the harlot 
represents the religion of the spotted beast and of the dragon, 
a successsion of beast rule. That image shown the king of 
Babylon is the great Zodiac of time, and the last and lowest 
of it is to be found divided into these ten toes explained as 
kingdoms, both to John and to Daniel. It is upon these that 
the harlot sits. She is the inheritor of all beastliness. She 
claims to hold both the law and the gospel over the whole 
world. We have done injustice to this book by raising ques- 
tions over these ten kingdoms and over personalities, much to 
the loss •of proper- attention to the deep central truth to be 
conveyed. 

The waters which thou sawest where the harlot sitteth are 
peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues and the ten horns 
which thou sawest and the beast these*shall hate the harlot and shall 
make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and shall burn 
her utterly with fire. For God did put in their hearts to do His 
mind and to come to one mind and to give their kingdom unto the 
beast until the words of God should be accomplished, and the 
woman whom thou sawest is the great city which reigneth over the 
kings of the earth. 

Here is the place to learn to read these symbols. Here we 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 309 

find that to sit on tlie beast^ and to sit upon many waters, is 
the same thing and not only so, but it is explained that she 
sits on the heads of the beast and that these heads are moun- 
tains and that they are also called kings. Kings, heads, horns, 
mountains, peoples, tribes and even toes are all symbols for 
government; its forms, its provinces, its source, etc. But when 
it says she sits on many waters it is explained to mean all na- 
tions and peoples and tongues, etc., the people simply as peo- 
ple as the source from w^hich Daniel saw the beast rising as 
out of the sea. The close relations of this woman with the beast 
and the dragon have been fully shown and now follows the turn- 
ing away of these powers from her and her destruction by 
them. A change and a divorce come and the world powers 
destroy her whom they once served. Here again we see the 
highly figurative way in which these symbols are to be taken 
w^hen it says in a contradictory manner that these powers 
shall "make her desolate and shall eat her, hate her and burn 
her with fire,^^ etc. What a lesson is here for all corrupt friend- 
ships; when the evil bond is broken and each holds the secret 
and shame of the other's guilt. 

That which is spice to our common speech is the staple 
with John. Our language is plodding and our thoughts drag 
heavily along. When Shakespeare lends us wings enough to 
raise our feet for but a moment from the earth we smile upon 
him as little children who are helped to leap a gully. But 
w^here John leads us we walk upon mountain tops and upon 
the brink of giddy precipices and step from peak to peak above 
the clouds and seem to touch the heaven and feel more that 
some one is leading us than that we are being pushed from be- 
hind as Hugo has said. No believer will ever read this book 
deeply but must feel that heaven is mysteriously near and ask, 
"Where am I?" 



310 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

God did put it in their hearts (these kingdoms of men) to do his 
mind and to come to one mind and to give their kingdom to the 
beast until the words of God be accomplished. 

And then they turn against her and devour her and burn her 
with fire. Tliese tilings are now facts, except the powers liave 
now gone so far only as to withdraw all support from her, but 
they will go still further until the will of God is carried out to 
the uttermost. Beast power itself has come under new condi- 
tions. It is now called "an eighth/^ and is of or out of the 
seven to be destroyed by Christ. Protestantism is incidentally 
if not directly favored by the turning of the world powers 
against Eome, but Eomanism is tolerated and continues to as- 
sert its old spirit wherever it has a chance and is never to be 
trusted again. 

A degenerate protestantism is a prop for the harlot church. 
The accepted dogma that the state and the church must be 
forever separate, answered a very effective purpose in loosing 
and freeing the powers from their vassalage to a most corrupt 
church, but it does not settle the question of what Christ re- 
quires of governments. Whoever supposes the present as the 
settled condition of either the state or the church is deeply 
deluded and very poorly equipped for great Christian service. 

There can be no rest till Christian statehood shall be es- 
tablished throughout the world. The coming church will see 
that this shall come to pass, for that church will have no dogmas. 
It will need only Christ. It will ask and answer "what would 
Jesus do?" The verities of Christianity will be presented in 
the new higher light of this Eevelation and the old methods of 
procedure will be obsolete. The day is near when all opposition 
to the divinity and Lordship of Jesus Christ will cease forever. 

The introduction of enlightened conscience into civic and 
commercial life will be the beginning of the second great pro- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 311 

cess of the ages. The church cannot help the state to do that 
which the church itself cannot do^ and the church cannot live 
and suffer her members to act in tAvo characters at open war 
with each other. Not religious formularies, nor doctrines, nor 
sects, but a great living faith in Christ that will carry the 
conscience into government and commerce and dispose them on 
the principles that rule the personal, domestic and social re- 
lations of Christian life will soon put an end to the beast idea 
of rule, and this God has begun to bring about already. 

Protestantism has settled one thing, and that is that political 
power shall no longer be under the control of the harlot. But 
as to what use may be made of brute power it has not yet 
settled. It has divorced both itself and Eomanism from the 
state. This is only destructive. Its great movement must be 
constructive. That new church will tell the state it cannot 
engage in the opium or rum traffic nor in any way destroy 
the life of man nor permit its destruction or degradation under 
the pretense of a penal tax for anticipated injuries or other 
pretense. The present truce must end. Daniel recognized this 
state of the world in the words "And the judgment shall set 
and they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy 
it unto the end, and the time came when the saints possessed 
the kingdom'^ vii, 22. And as concerning the rest of the 
beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives 
were prolonged for a season and a time, vii, 12. That happy 
time is yet before us, for we seem not yet to understand what 
it means for the saints to possess the kingdom. 

And the woman whom thou sawest is the great city which reign- 
eth over the kings of the earth. 

We have now seen the dragon power passed over to the 
beast, and from the beast to the harlot, and now the harlot 



312 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

is treated under the symbolism of a great city and in opposi- 
tion to the Holy City^ the New Jerusalem. 

SYMBOL SYNONYMS. 

Wilderness: Apostasy; sin; court without; outside the city; 
beastly. 

Harlot: Great city; mystic Babylon; Sodom; Egypt. 

Heads: Forms of government, as kingly, consular, imperial, etc. 

Horns: Provinces or subordinate governments. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 313 

CHAPTEE XVIII. 

Revelation XVIII. 

THE GREAT DIRGE. 

The harlot is the false church, the great city Mystery Baby- 
lon. Her doom is written in the strain that foretold the doom 
of the old city of the plains on the Euphrates that ruled the 
whole world and took Israel captive (Isaiah xiii, 9). 

"And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the 
Chaldees excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom 
and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited neither shall it 
be dwelt in from generation to generation. Neither shall the 
Arabians pitch tent there, i^either shall the shepherds make 
their fold there, but the wild beasts of the desert shall lie there 
and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls 
shall dwell there and satyrs shall dance there; and the wild 
beasts of the forest shall cry in their desolate houses and dragons 
in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come and her 
days shall not be prolonged." The second, the mystic Baby- 
lon, "spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," is to receive her 
doom in this doleful strain. 

And after these things I saw another angel coming down out of 
heaven having great authority and the earth was lighted with his 
glory, and he cried with a mighty voice saying. Fallen! Fallen! is 
Babylon, the great; and is become the habitation of devils and a 
hold of every unclean spirit and a hold of every unclean and hate- 
ful bird, for by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the 
nations are fallen and the kings of the earth committed fornica- 
tion with her and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the 
power of her wantonness. 



314 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

We notice this judgment of the great harlot is attended by 
another coming of the Lord. It diiiers from His other com- 
ings in a manner suited to the changed nature of the errand. 
This angel comes with great authority and he takes np a stone 
and casts it into the sea to give dramatic effect to the cer- 
tainty of the downfall of the great city, the false church called 
the "Harlot." The kings and merchants of the earth have com- 
mitted spiritual adultery by lending her their corrupt power 
and receiving her pretended absolutions. Pure Paganism is not 
so dangerous a foe to Christ as this pretense to religion. 
Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, were smitten with death as 
a deterrent to hypocrisy. "By the wine of the wrath of her 
fornication" the kings and merchants and people had been 
made drunken. It was a horrid spectacle to see beast power 
pretending to sit in the place of God. 

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come forth my 
people out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins and that 
ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins have reached unto 
heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. 

It has often been asked where were God's people during the 
dark days of the woman's hiding in the wilderness? 

Here is an answer in part at least. This cry to the early re- 
formers was like a voice from heaven to come forth from 
bondage and that they might not partake of her sins. They 
came forth out of her and will continue to come till she is 
totally deserted and desolated. So far as the original church 
is concerned, we have shown that under the symbols of the 
Holy City, and of a fallen temple it went into decay, and 
under the symbol of the beautiful woman it went into the wil- 
derness apostate and dishonored on the wings of the Eoman 
eagle; and we found this same fact in the fourth trumpet where 
all the lights of heaven went out, and now we hear God calling 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 315 

His people to come out of her. All the reasons why God's peo- 
ple should come out of Bahylon hold equally good for their 
coming out of every combination that subverts loyalty to Christ 
or corrupts a pure life. 

The reason given for calling them to come out from the 
Harlot rule is "that ye have no fellowship with her sins and 
that ye receive not of her plagues.'' To remain with her is 
to be guilty of her sins and punishable with her plagues. Who 
can fix the boundaries of what is meant by the symbol "Baby- 
lon?" T\Tio can say which are daughters of the harlot and to 
what extent this wicked power may still corrupt the churches? 
Who can expect to see the church rise to those new heights of 
glory and power portrayed to us in the Evangel series, acting 
under our present standards of applied morals? How can any 
true Christian rest satisfied with the present status, or expect 
to see the regeneration begun without a far deeper and mightier 
work of God in the life of believers? That call to come forth 
must continue to sound till no society or party can claim the 
loyalty of any Christian if it does not trui;y represent Christ 
in its principles and life. The first and highest command from 
heaven is to "save yourselves from this crooked generation." 
"Come forth out of her in order that ye may have no fellow- 
ship with her sin/' — to stay is to fellowship with her sins. 

Render unto her even as she rendered, and double unto her the 
double according to her works. In the cup which she mingled, min- 
gle unto her double. How much soever she glorified herself and 
waxed wanton so much give her of torment and mourning, for she 
said in her heart I sit a queen and am no widow and shall in no 
wise see mourning, therefore in one day shall her plagues come, 
death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned 
with fire, for strong is the Lord God which judged her. 

Her fall is double and her own evil judgments are doubled 
upon her. How vain to hear men talk of remaining within 



316 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

evil combinations corrnptly loyal to sin with a view to reform- 
ing them. It was never done nor ever can be. They should 
come forth out of them and oppose them. God says come 
out of Sodom^ come out of Egypt, come out of Babylon, come 
out of this worst Babylon of living pretense, come out of every 
false thing, oh my people, and have no fellowship. It is a 
judgment and a pang bitterly felt by the wicked when good 
men for conscience' sake withdraw themselves from evil com- 
binations. God separated Noah and Abraham and Israel to 
preserve righteousness in the earth, and Christ was "separate 
from sinners'' and for that reason was "made higher than the 
heavens." "Come ye out from among them and be ye separate, 
saith the Lord; touch not the unclean and I will receive you." 

And the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived 
wantonly with her shall weep and wail over her when they look 
upon the smoke of her burning standing afar off for fear of her 
torment saying, Woe! woe! the great city Babylon, the strong city, 
for in one hour is her ju<igment come. 

Ah! it is a bad thing to make sinful alliances. It is evil to 
have another in trust of your sin which you so much desire 
to hide. It makes humility and confession so hard and presses 
so close to cause one to act the hypocrite and to cause him to 
willingly wear a fairer name before men than before God, fear- 
ing man more than God, exalting man above God, so he con- 
fesses brute power and denies the power of God and that true 
glory of Christ, who humbled Himself and became obedient 
even to the death of the cross. "How can ye believe on Me 
so long as ye receive honor one of another?" Now that the 
time of her retribution comes and judgment falls heavily upon 
her, then the old paramours, the merchants and kings whose 
secret guilt she holds, stand afar off for fear of her torment. 
So it is with all corrupt alliances. They will fall and the guilty 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 



317' 



shall try to hide in the rocks and caves. Those who lead ns 
into sin care very little for the results that may befall us. 

What a very doleful lament the earth kings make over the 
perishing city: 

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her for no 
man buyeth her merchandise any more; merchandise of gold and 
silver and precious stones and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, 
and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood and every vessel of ivory, 
and every vessel of most precious wood, and of brass, and of iron, 
and marble, and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment 
and frankincense and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and 
cattle, and sheep, and merchandise of horses, and chariots, and 
slaves, and souls of men. 

Now we understand that voice that came forth after the third 
seal^ which said^ "A measure of wheat for a penny and three 
measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil 
and the wdne." Here is a great bankrupt sale, with no bidders 
to bid on her contraband stuffs. Every article of usefulness, 
of beauty, and luxury for sale, but alas! no buyers. The mer- 
chantmen and traders by sea mourn ov^r her failure that none 
will longer buy her merchandise. The people have no further 
use for her fraudulent trinkets of harlotry and superstition. 
Her dead stock of merchandise might be invoiced in more 
literal words as follows: ^'Auction! auction! For sale! for 
sale! to the highest bidder. Altars, Archbishops, Bones, Bless- 
ings, Beads, Crosses, Candles, Cardinals, Cathedrals, Confes- 
sionals, Councils and Celibacies, Dominicans, Fish, Flagella- 
tions, Fathers and Good Fridays, Friars, gray, black and 
crossed; Gowns, black and w^hite; Masses, high and low and 
dry; Monasteries, , Nuns, Novices and extreme unctions, 
Macerations and surplices; Saints' Days and Holy Water, Holy 
Earth, Holy Indulgences, and Holy Mother Church," all for 



318 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN ClOTH; 

sale and not a buyer, nor a bidder on earth; Almighty God 
speed the blessed day! 

''I counsel thee to bny of me gold tried in the fire that thon 
mayest become rich, and white garments that thou mayest clothe 

thyself." 

And the fruits which thy soul lusted after are gone from thee 
and all things that were dainty, and sumptuous are perished from 
thee and men shall find them no more at all. The merchants of 
these things which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for 
fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe! Woe! 
the great city, she that was arrayed in fine linen and purple and 
scarlet and decked with precious stone and pearl, for in one hour 
is so great riches made desolate. 

First the kings, then' the merchants, then the' shipmasters 
in turn lament her desolation and bankruptcy and utter a 
double woe. 

And every shipmaster and every one that saileth any whither 
and mariners and as many as gain their living by the sea stood 
afar off and cried as they looked upon the smoke of her burning 
saying. What city is like the great city? And they cast dust on 
their heads and cried weeping and mourning saying, Woe! Woe! the 
great city, wherein were made rich all that had their ships in the 
sea by reason of her costliness, for in one hour she is made desolate. 

Here the dirge is interrupted by a parenthesis in which the 
seer addresses an exulting apostrophe to the saints and apostles. 
The somber refrain over the deserted city bursts up with joy 
on the other side and the heavenly glory breaks out in accla- 
mations of unrestrained rejoicing. 

Rejoice over her thou heaven and ye saints and ye apostles and 
ye prophets, for God hath judged your judgment on her. 

How true His words sound when He said, "The world shall 
rejoice and ye shall sorrow, but your sorrow shall be turned 
into joy." This cheer must have dried away the tears from the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 3l9 

exile's face. Since lie began to tell ns his emotions and the 
parts he bore our hearts ask at every new turn, and how did 
he feel here? 

And a strong angel took up a great stone as it were a mill stone 
and cast it into the sea saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall 
Babylon the great city be cast down and shall be found no more 
at all. 

The doom of old Babylon was dramatized by the order of 
JereTQiah to Seriah that when he had made an end of reading 
the book of Babylon's doom to her sinful people he should 
bind a stone to it and cast it into the Euphrates and say, "Thus 
shall Babylon sink and shall not rise from the evil I will bring 
upon her." This action does not illustrate the suddenness of 
the fall so much as the certainty of it. Then folloAvs this 
tender sadness to close the dirge of world sorrow that begets no 
repentance toward God. 

And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute playery and 
trumpets shall be heard no more at all in thee, and no craftsman of 
whatsoever craft shall be found any more at all in thee, and the 
voice of the millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee, and the 
voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at 
all in thee, for thy merchants were the princes of the earth; for 
with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived and in her was 
found the blood of prophets and saints and of all that have been 
slain upon the earth. 

She did not in her single self slay all that have been slain 
upon the earth, but she does not have any single self. She is 
the embodiment and representative of all brute and all diabol- 
ical power. In this sense she is guilty of the blood of all and 
not only so, but every one who hates his brother or denies God 
is guilty of all the sin of all the enemies of God, for he is 
with him and of them in one common cause. One is not guilty 
of a part of the sins committed by his company, or party, or 



320 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

trust, or church with which he holds membership, but is him- 
self guilty of all its sins as though he had consented to them 
each, for he consents to all. "Their sins cleave together." The 
desolation pictured here causes a shudder. The halls where 
music and gayety once abounded now silent, and the voices 
of lovers stilled and the millstone and the anvil of the smith 
no longer heard and this is the awful imagery in which brute 
power is to give way to the glorious light of "the Lamb of God, 
who taketh away the sin of the world." 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 321 

CHAPTEE XIX. 

Revelation XIX. 

MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB.— THE GREAT SUPPER OF GOD. 

Ah! now the enemy is vanquished. The harlot has been 
judged and her pride is fallen and her jewels taken away and 
her city bankrupt and she is burnt with fire and her merchants 
mourn and the kings and merchants and mariners stand afar 
off to bemoan her. It is time for the bride to appear. She 
that was clothed with the sun and jeweled with the stars, the 
moon under her feet, shall now come forth again a pure virgin 
and yet the mother of saints, as Mary was both the mother of 
Jesus and a chaste virgin. The marriage of the Lamb has 
come. Long separated, the time has at last come for the rap- 
ture. Here the greatest of the great oratorios is given. Now 
with music and rejoicing the spiritual festivities go forward 
amid deafening acclamations of joy. 

After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great 
multitude in heaven saying, Hallelujah, Salvation and Glory and 
power belong to our God for true and righteous are his judgments; 
for he hath judged the great harlot which did corrupt the earth with 
her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her 
hand; and a second time they say, Hallelujah! And her smoke 
goeth up forever and ever, and the four and twenty elders and the 
four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sitteth on 
the throne, saying, Amen! Hallelujah! and a voice came from the 
throne saying, Give praise to our God all ye his servants, ye that 
fear him, the small and the great. And I heard as it were the voice 
of a great multitude and as the voice of great waters and as the 
voice of many thunders saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord our 
God reigneth. Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad and let us give 
21 



322 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the glory unto him for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his 
wife hath made herself ready. 

The parable of the marriage supper spoken by our Lord 
comes vividly to mind. The bridegroom long expected now 
appears and His coming brings the greatest joy. The bride hath 
made herself ready and the feast of rejoicing has begun. It 
was given to her that she should array herself in fine linen 
bright and pure, "for the fine linen is the righteous acts of 
saints.^^ 

"The righteous acts of saints!'^ What a day of rejoicing it 
will be when dogma and formalism give way to Christian living 
and doing. "I was hungry and ye fed me; I was thirsty and 
ye gave me drink, in prison and ye visited me. Then shall he 
say, ^Come, ye blessed of My Father, inasmuch as ye did it 
unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye did it unto 
Me.' '' Of such deeds as these, done in the name of Christ, 
the garment of white linen is to be woven. 

And he said to me, Blessed are they that are bidden to the mar- 
riage supper of the Lamb. 

They have kept their lamps trimmed and burning and the 
cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh,'' meets an echo in their 
hearts, and all the great company shout, the multitude in 
heaven and the elders and the four living creatures. Four times 
they acclaim Hallelujah! and a mighty voice from the throne 
adds its loud accent, "Give praise to God all ye servants that 
fear Him, the small and the great." "And He sayeth unto 
me, these are the true words of God." 

Twice the guiding angel gives this solemn declaration. How 
wide of a dream are such positive and assuring words. There 
are seven blessings pronounced as there are seven choruses 
sung and seven ascriptions of praise chanted. This blessing 
is to those bidden to the marriage of the Lamb." 

We seem to be so much nearer to hear the blessing repeated 



on. THE RIVEN VEIL. 323 

and then the positive assurance that "these are the true words 
of God/' How glorious it must all be and we find ourselves 
wishing for a little more definiteness; but a more definite 
or literal description w^ould fall below, for what have we ever 
experienced of joy that would not put a limit and leave a taint 
on the glory of that blessing? It was John who said, "We 
are now the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we 
shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall 
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 

The mystery element about this book seems to some to 
belong more to the realm of dreams than to the supreme reality 
that it is and declares itself to be. Believers should stop to 
think how much of all they learn of Christ is in figurative 
language, for His sixty or more titles are all figurative. How 
this rejoicing over the marriage supper of the Lamb affected 
the exile himself is clearly seen. He does not tell us what 
words of praise filled his soul or fell from his mouth, but if 
there was the slightest possibility .that he was only dreaming, 
it all left him when his angel guide said, "These are the true 
words of God," for his inclinations to worship rose in his heart, 
and he falls before him and offers divine honors to his brother, 
the angel guide. 

And I fell down before his feet to worship' him and he said unto 
me, See thou do it not. I am a fellow-servant with thee and thy 
brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the 
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. 

The two disciples knew not their Lord after His resurrection 
as He walked with them toward Emmaus. There was some- 
thing very realistic about this angel's presence that brought the 
old saint to his knees. How shall we imagine his feelings when 
told "I am your fellow servant and of your brethren that hold 
the testimony of Jesus." This is the first time the angel has 
declared himself, and the first time he has uttered any senti- 



324 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH: 

ment about the Eevelation. His short sermon, besides his 
warning to John not to worship him, but to worship God, is, 
"These are the true words of God; the testimony of Jesus is 
the spirit of prophecy." He is the Alpha and the Omega. He 
is the Spirit and the end of all prophecy. He is the seed of 
the woman that should bruise the serpent's head. Of him all 
the prophets sang. 

We shall presently see that John offers the second time to 
worship his angel guide and is restrained from doing so. 

To the astonished exile he announces himself as "your fellow- 
servant and brother to them that hold the testimony of Jesus." 
He comes within the line of terrestrial relations. 

We have from the first stood hard against the brink of the 
infinite, leaning over and peering again and again into the 
abysmal depths, till vertigo compelled us to close the book and 
rest the inner eye. The personalities in dim shadows have passed 
before us by the parts they acted and the relations they bore as 
given us in the writings of Luke and John. 

John himself stands half-way out of our sphere, head and 
breast, looming above earth and time into the realm of the spirit- 
ual and eternal. He causes Peter to come before us again in the 
world as he passed out of prison when the angel led him, and 
raises Paul to view also by the parts which he acted while here by 
his unique call direct from the golden altar, and himself he sets 
before us in the ecstatic hour of his life when Christ returned 
to him and gave him the little book to eat. 

He tells us that God sent his angel to signify the Eevelation 
to His servant, and that when he heard the trumpet's voice he 
turned and saw one like unto a Son of Man, gold-girdled about 
the breasts and his head and hair snowy white, and his feet as 
molten brass, and that he fell as a dead man at his feet, and that 
he laid his right hand upon him saying, "fear not." He saw 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 325 

the angel ascend with the seal of the living God; he saw him 
descend witli a rainbow npon his head and clothed with the 
clouds, and he sees him sit upon a cloud and going from nation 
to nation saying, "fear God/'' and then he is bidden to follow the 
angel into the wilderness to see the fallen woman and last is led 
to an exceeding high mountain to view the City of God. In 
some of these acts we clearly recognize Christ, in others we guess, 
but think of Peter and of James and of Paul, and as John was 
closely associated with Luke so long a time after their decease 
he also comes to mind. 

Never before did mortal man reach up so far into the infinite. 
He stands on the rock of Patmos and yet commands every hori- 
zon of the spirit world. 

The awful visions of Ezekiel and of Zachariah are as pliant 
and nimble in his hand as the alphabet, and every prophet's 
harp wakes and vibrates to his touch and their music reaches 
us beyond the waves of time, and we recognize some of the 
players by their parts. From Patmos we look out toward the 
outer brink of his vision and find grades of tangibility. There 
are stars which are but flickering points of light, and milky 
ways of nebula, and there also are the sun, moon and planets of 
our known spiritual world. 

We have found order and outline in John's arrangements. 
He has given us standing room and points of vision where we 
may lift the telescope of faith. 

And I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse and he that 
sat thereon called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth 
judge and make war and his eyes are a flame of fire and upon his 
head are many diadems; and he hath a name written which no one 
knoweth but himself, and he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled 
with blood and his name is called the word of God and the armies 
which are in heaven follow him upon white horses clothed in white 
linen, white and pure. 



326 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

That is, the white horse, once ridden down by the red, has 
returned. He conies followed by the armies of heaven^ the 
hundred and forty-fonr thousand, the multitude no man could 
number, all the saints. It is the bridegroom and his retinue, 
his marriage pageant. He comes from the war, he wears many 
diadems upon his head, he has a name written which no other 
can wear, for he is the first fruits, the first born from the 
dead. He trod the wine-press alone and he comes with his 
garments sprinkled with the blood, as from the wrath of God 
which he treads and presses from the earth vine "without 
the city." His name is Faithful and True and He is "called 
the Word of God." He judges and makes war against spiritual 
wickedness in high places. He is the "Michael" who has cast 
Satan out of heaven. His followers who have been with him 
in the war now follow with him in procession to the feast, 
"the marriage supper." The Word that was in the begin- 
ning with God now rides a white horse in heavenly conquest 
on earth. 

And out of his mouth proceeded a sharp sword that with it he 
should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron 
and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of Almighty God, 
and he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written. King of 
Kings and Lord of Lords. 

He has conquered the world powers, and now rules them 
with a rod of iron. His will is mightier than the armaments 
of the earth. For His servants will for Him gladly give up 
their lives. All the rationalism, ritualism and materialism of 
this world never caused one man to quit lying or stealing or 
sinning, but for Him and to follow Him, "they love not their 
lives even unto death." All this picture of His warfare is not 
to be separated from His crucifying the world powers, but 
presents it in a different phase only. It is Christ, viewed ii; 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 



327 



relation to His reception by the new cliurcli, wliicli comes forth 
as a bride adorned for her husband, and also a conqnerer of 
sin. 

And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud 
voice saying, to all the birds that fly in midheaven, Come and be 
gathered unto the great supper of God that ye may eat the flesh of 
kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and 
the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon and the flesh of all 
men, both free and bond and small and great. 

At the first thought there is a shocking incongruity in 
calling upon all the birds of prey to come to a marriage and 
feast at the great supper of God. It is as distasteful as that 
the four beasts, as they are called in the common version, 
should be seen in the company of the Elders and joyful saints 
before the throne. The mixing of figures here is in violation 
of our rhetoric. The rejoicing is as if it were a heavenly jubilee 
and a pageant in white, led by a warrior whose garment is 
sprinkled in blood as if returning from a field of battle^ and 
the great supper of the marriage of the Lamb, where the birds 
of the air are called to do the eating and feasting, and that 
is also a field of battle, where the horse and the rider lay side 
by side in their own gore. 

The point in which this very mixed allegory is to be taken 
is that the captains and mighty men, the world powers, are 
become food for the birds of prey. It would be vapid to 
mention any menu as a repast for the great supper of God. 
The feeling is more one of victory than of hunger, and that 
victory is such as throws eternal contempt on all the glory of 
earth. The satisfying of the appetite is too slight to express 
an occasion so great, or a joy so profound and widespread and 
enduring as is here pictured. It is much like saying that in 
the rapture and glory of the marriage of the Lamb all the 
glory of earth will be as nothing. That to become kings and 



328 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

great captains is a prize for which men will wade through blood 
and terror, receives here its true meaning in the vanity and 
despair of fallen world magnates. They are fit only for vul- 
tures. An angel stands in the sun and cries to all the vulture 
tribes to come and feed upon the pride of man, come and eat 
the glory of the kings and chiefs slain in battle. What a 
sense of the awful and eternal contempt for all the glory of 
man is here expressed; what an inferno for all the pride of 
rebellion that an angel from the new Jerusalem should tell 
us standing in the sun that in this new glory-land, where 
Christ is the nuptial Prince, world kings and war captains are 
food only for buzzards. It was in this light that God showed 
to Daniel the nature of apostate man in the usurpation and 
exercise of brute rule over man by the symbols of great brutes 
coming up out of the sea. 

It was shown by the four beasts of world power that rose 
out of the sea of the sinful race which had spread over the 
earth. Here at this culmination of glory, at this marriage of 
the Lamb and the great supper of God, we have also the utter- 
most of the shame of the enemy, the outcome of brute rule 
on the earth, dramatized in a most startling manner. All our 
methods and contrivances of speech are surpassed by this 
strange and awful mixture of allegory; a battle field with a 
triumphal march and a marriage supper with the vultures 
eating the carcasses of the enemy. A mere supper would be 
spiritless, but a victory is united to it giving great and enlivened 
expression. Your kings and captains and rich men and mighty 
men, whose glory and power have been raised upon the toil and 
tears of so many and whose temples are erected on the blood 
and bones of their subject millions, are fallen. They lay 
mingled to the level with dead horses and where all their glory 
is but a supper for unclean birds, dwellings of devils and holds 
of every unclean spirit. This mixing of allegory has the effect 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 329 

to break down tlie possible use of the literalistic method of 
interpretation. All that we seem to grasp even in the ordi- 
nances tends to harden in our hands. Our Christian ordinances 
and our holidays seem to go into degeneration by our using 
them, for we contend for forms to. the constant neglect of the 
spirit they were designed to inspire. The time was when our 
Independence Day was better kept than now, when the read- 
ing of the Declaration of Independence disposed all hearts to 
a feryent patriotism. Thanksgiving Day once filled the 
churches, and gratitude mingling with a holier resolve, filled 
all hearts with praise. But these and other holidays have de- 
generated. Christmas, the Christian Day, is noted above all 
others for gluttony, drunkenness and folly. 

This poem from Patmos has received but little from scholar- 
ship and has but little to ofier it. It more than any other book 
addresses the heart, wherein are the wellsprings of joy, grati- 
tude and obedience. In this direction all its mighty symbols 
move. T^Tiat we call analysis is weak through its very proc- 
esses and what we fondly regard as exact knowledge is too often 
but a clumsy and vapid veracity of externals and a complacent 
security in delusions. 

This age of analysis must soon give way to the coming age 
of synthesis. The world that Bacon caused to be taken to 
pieces to look at will be put together again and seen in its 
true wholeness. The subterfuges of intellectual gymnastics 
must give way to the song and myriad-shaped beauty of Christ's 
religion. These last chapters of the Eevelation throw open the 
gates to reflection in a way that transcends the limits of all 
our literary contrivances. The very mixing of rhetoric in this 
manner keeps the mind from hardening spnbols of spiritual 
thought into mere things, and opens to view the spiritual 
world as deep and inexhaustible and beautiful to the soul as 
the starry worlds to the eye. 



330 



MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH: 



And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies 
gathered together to make war with him that sat upon the horse 
and against his army. And the beast was taken and VN^ith him the 
false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight wherewith he 
deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them 
that had worshiped his image. They twain were cast alive into the 
lake of fire that burneth with brimstone, and the rest were killed 
with the sword which came forth out of his mouth and all ihe 
birds were filled with their flesh. 

This is the two-horned beast who is three times called "The 
False Prophet." There are two punishments as there are two 
salvations. There is the salvation of restoration of this world 
to the rule of Christ with His rod of iron, and there is the 
eternal salvation of the soul beyond the field of time; so there 
are two punishments, one that brings this world under His 
authority and one that consigns to the lake of fire or perdition 
hereafter, but their line of deiinition does not appear, as both 
blessings and judgments begin here and go on. The great 
variety of symbols employed to express the punishments of the 
evil powers are in variety and extent quite like those used to 
express the relations of joy and gladness and triumphs be- 
lievers are promised to enjoy in Christ. We experience a sense 
of strangeness in the symbols of the Kevelation only because 
we have not adoj)ted .them in usage. We are quite used to 
symbols and figures about Christ and salvation in current Chris- 
tian use. 

We notice in the following table in how many different 
ways we express the same fact of our being saved: 



He Savior 
He Shepherd 
He Father 
He Physician 
He Teacher 
He Judge 
He Ruler 



We lost 
We strayed 
We orphans 
We sick 
We ignorant 
We criminal 
We in prison 



He saved us 
He found us 
He adopted us 
He healed us 
He taught us 
He justified us 
He liberated us 



We are saved 
We are flock 
We are family 
We are whole 
We are disciples 
-We are just 
We are free 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 331 

Thus we have said the same fact seven times over^ but all 
in symbol and figurative language, and by preserving the 
proper correlation we see how ^^found/^ and "healed/' and 
"adopted/' and "justified/' etc., are different ways of saying 
"converted/' just as "flock/' and "family/' and "disciples" are 
different ways of saying "the church/' etc. This can be car- 
ried on 'through another seven in the same manner. Thus the 
Redeemer redeems us; the Author writes upon us and we are 
the Letter of Christ; the King naturalizes us and we are 
"fellow citizens;" the Holy One sanctifies us and we are saints, 
etc. 

This diagram illustrates the progress of on-going time, showing 
that we have come by seven routes to the millenium. 

The order as regards the progress of on-going time, which follows 
the different agencies employed respectively to the end, thus bringing 
us seven times to the Millennium. 

THE SEVEN OPEN LETTERS - Millennium, Chap. IV. 

SEVEN SEALED LETTERS - - Millennium or Sabbath, V. -VIII: 2. 

SEVEN TRUMPETS Millennium or Kingdom, VIII.-XI. 

HOLY SPIRIT Millennium or Kingdom, XI. 

THE CHURCH Millennium or Kingdom, XII. 

SEVEN EVANGELS Millennium or Harvest, XIV. 

SEVEN AVENGERS Millennium or the End, XV, XVI. 

The Millennium, as it is commonly called, is expressed as a 
"half -hour's silence in heaven," viii: 1; as, "the kingdom come," 
xi: 15 and xii: 10; as "harvest," xiv: 20; as "marriage supper," xix; 
and as "first resurrection," xx; and negatively as "a crucifixion of 
.-sinners," vi: 6; as a "winepress," xv: 20; as a "hail storm," xv: 21. 



332 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

CHAPTEE XX. 

Revelation XX. 

SATAN BOUND.— THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 

Satan, repulsed in the spiritual contest of the great tempta- 
tion of Christ, seized Him and bound Him and led Him to the 
nearest seat of Satanic power and there denied Him judg- 
ment and condemned and killed the guiltless and the just 
one, who was "as a lamb dumb before his shearer." He came 
to our Lord in His solitude and tempted Him to use His divine 
power to appease His human hunger and so to discredit His 
perfect humanity; and then he tempted Him to cast Himself 
from the pinnacle of the temple upon the angels of God and 
their charge and so to deny or discredit His perfect divinity, and 
then he tempted Him to deny both His divine and human 
nature by falling down before the Devil in an act of worship'. 
But Christ said three times, "It is written," and then He said, 
"Get behind Me, Satan." 

When Christ stood before Pilate He said, "You could have 
no power against Me at all except it were given thee from 
above." "Thinkest thou not that I could pray to My Father 
and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of 
angels?" In the judgments against the sinful world there 
is to be a special reckoning with Satan, who stands behind 
them all, and as he instigated the imprisoning of Christ in 
the tomb, it is meet that a punishment be inflicted that shall 
have in it the form and suggestion of retribution as coming 
from Christ. Satan's arrest and imprisonment therefore is 
very properly ascribed as the personal act of Christ. We are not 
looking now upon some later judgment than those already given, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 333 

but only upon another aspect of the same. The great harlot 
has receiyed a just judgment and now the judgment of Satan 
is the subject. As the mock church was judged by the saints 
or the true church, so shall Satan be judged by the Christ. 
This is not something apart from the other judgments, but 
the proper antithesis respected, the woman's seed, Christ, bruis- 
ing the serpent's head. The true church shall judge the false, 
and the Christ, its head, shall judge the head of the false, and 
the imagery of His own seizure and burial in the tomb is 
employed to describe His retaliation upon Satan just as He 
is represented as punishing the world powers, in the sixth 
seal, in form as a crucifixion. 

Christ is now in the foreground and is the chief, and hence 
a heightening of expression, as if it might be an occasion to 
itself of a different time or nature. But it is a fact already 
seen in other phases. This same heightening we noticed when 
the church came into view which brought out all Satanic power 
in the great red dragon as the serpent that beguiled Eve. 
For the three days and nights that Christ was shut up in the 
tomb Satan is to be shut up for a thousand years, and Christ 
shall execute the sentence as if in His own person. He shall 
open the pit of the abyss and shall put the deceiver in and 
seal him in for "a thousand years" that he may "deceive the 
nations no more." That suppresses the kingdom of Satan and 
raises the kingdom of God into power. He has overcome the 
wicked one as if in his own person. 

And after this I saw an angel coniing down out of heaven having 
the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid 
hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, 
and bound him for a thousand years and cast him into the abyss 
and shut it and sealed it over him that he should deceive the na- 
tions no more until the thousand years should be finished; after 
this he must be loosed for a little time. 



334 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Deceiving the nations has been his wicked business for a 
long time. When he is made to cease from deceiving the 
nations then the kingdom of God will rise and rule. This 
is also a coming of the Lord besides those mentioned to bind 
Satan and imprison him. He holds the key which Satan pre- 
tended to have^ and to have given to the beast and by which 
he carried on that great fraud abont purgatory, by which he 
could deceive and oppress his victims and yet prevent them 
from suiciding. Satan is here again given four appropriate 
names— "Serpent/' "Dragon," "Satan/' and "Devil.'' 

A thousand years means a long time, a full legal sentence, as 
the symbol "ten" imports. It is multiplied by one iiundred, 
just as four was multiplied by itself, and then by one hundred 
to give the total of world punishment in a lake of blood that 
ran from the wine-press of the wrath of God sixteen hundred 
furlongs. By the same method the saints who are sealed on 
the forehead are called tv/elve thousand for each tribe, and 
then multiplied by twelve to give both the parts and the sum 
total in the symbol twelve to indicate they are God's chosen, 
etc., and yet their actual number, John says, no man could 
count. This is not a multiple, not numeral, but symbol. This 
coming of Christ, like those already noticed, has special refer- 
ence to the things which Christ is in form doing, what, in fact. 
He is doing through His saints here in action upon the earth. 

And I saw thrones and they that sat upon them and judgment 
was given to them and I saw the souls of them that were be- 
headed for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God and such 
as worshiped not the beast neither his image and received not the 
mark upon their foreheads and upon their hand, and they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years, but the rest of the dead live 
not again till the thousand years should be finished. 

This thousand years is now identified both by the fall and 
imprisonment of Satan and by the rise and reign of Christ and 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 335 

the saints. These are the reverse conditions to the same gen- 
eral facts .as positive and negative, just as the ascendancy of 
brnte power and the imprisonment of the church in the wilder- 
ness are opposite sides to the same general fact, and are co- 
equal. These were the opposite conditions before the Eeforma- 
tion as these later are the opposite conditions in the regenera- 
tion or first resurrection. 

Daniel's vision of the reign of the saints (Dan. vii, 27) is 
here fulfilled, and the words of onr Lord that the apostles 
should sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel 
in the regeneration, has here also its fulfillment. It is the 
reign of Christ and His apostles and His saints. With the 
entombment of Satan, who is the head of Satanic powers, comes 
the first resurrection and the ascension of the heavenly powers 
to reign. This resurrection includes all who were beheaded 
and those sealed and all who worshiped not the beast, etc. It 
includes all saints. A confusion arises as soon as we divide the 
living from the dead saints and assume a personal, bodily resur- 
rection. The living saints are raised as well as the dead. Such 
questions as, "Will marriages and births and deaths go on?'' 
and "Will immortals and mortals live side by side?'' and "Will 
those who die be at once raised again?" etc., are perplexing. 
Out of these and like questions have grown many confused 
theories bewildering and unsatisfactory. 

This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath 
part in the first resurrection; over these the second death hath no 
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall 
reign with him a thousand years. 

The rest of the dead are those that worship the beast and 
his image; who have oppressed the saints; whose descent and 
imprisonment are coincident with the emancipation and ascend- 
ancy of the saints. The conditions are reversed. Christ and 



336 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

His saints have risen and Satan and the wicked are in tribulation 
and in prison. 

This ascendancy of Christ and His saints and His trnth in 
the earth is called "the first resurrection," and it includes all 
the saints, those whose souls cried from beneath the altar, and 
those later who refused the mark of the beast, even ithe living 
and dead and unborn. Those born during this time will reign 
with Christ while they live and continue to reign with Him 
without respect to living or dying, for here, as heretofore, the 
death line does not appear, does not divide the saints. The 
souls under the altar and the living shall together reign, for 
there is no division between them, the veil having been taken 
away. Our difficulty here lies in our making a distinction 
which the Apocalypse does not make. Other scriptures or the 
interpretation of other scriptures have been imported into this, 
and it has been forced into answering a complex question which 
it does not entertain. The first presentation we have of the 
saint's triumph in this book is that of the fruition or millen- 
nium condition where the Elders and the four living creatures 
and the sea of glass are all in one and the same relation to the 
throne, and in their second appearance (vii, 9) we have them 
in the same symbols and they are before the throne and upon 
the earth serving day and night (there being no day or night 
in the eternal w^orld) and being led to fountains of waters, etc. 
Their appearance on every occasion is without distinction as 
to heaven or earth. They are '^they that tabernacle in heaven,'' 
and the veil being rent, heaven and the church are annexed and 
we are in heaven while on earth and have eternal life now in 
John's mode of teaching. 

The added words, "Blessed is he that hath part in the first 
resurrection," at first adds an appearance to a personal, bodily 
resurrection. But there are seven of these blessings in all. 
"Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 337 

the Lamb" and "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord 
from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
their labors and their works do follow with them." 

These three blessings point to the same general condition of 
things. Xow we have already seen that as Christ had a resur- 
rection and ascension, so had His two witnesses; so also we 
saw His chnrch lost and buried in the wilderness and it arose 
and came forth, and also in the figure of a temple, was trodden 
down and buried in the dust and was raised up and opened, etc. 
AYe also saw a parody or pantomime on these central facts, in 
which the false prophet gives life to the image of the beast, 
that he breathed life into the image of the beast, and that the 
beast itself has one head raised from the dead and restored 
to life. All this goes to show that a resurrection is a symbol 
well suited to express the rising of the people of God and 
the kingdom of God into the ascendancy from a long state of 
tribulation and subordination. "We may not only say this is 
"the first resurrection, but also the ascension, for the analogy 
and the usage of the symbols employed fully sustain the con- 
clusion. But an ascension into the upper air or to a place 
is not in harmony with the method of this book, whatever 
other scriptures may seem to teach. This is that great change 
already spoken of now in an all-comprehensive view. 

The tribulation and kingdom and patience in which John 
said he was in the isle of Patmos is become the triumph and 
kingdom and fruition of Jesus Christ, now risen, now on 
Mount Zion, now the Xew Jerusalem descended, etc. Christ 
and His apostles and His saints have risen from a state of 
subordination to one of ascendancy and dominion. The appear- 
ance of a bodily resurrection has been read into the text. We 
have just read two other blessings (there being seven in all) 
and these two are "blessed are the dead which die in the Lord 
from henceforth'' and "blessed are they which are bidden to 
22 



838 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the marriage supper of the Lamb/' Kow, these are not bless- 
ings on different persons nor on different conditions, but the 
same blessings under changed symbols expressed in proper 
correlation with the point of view in which the subject is held 
at the moment. In the condition here spoken of they are 
blessed while they live and blessed when they die. It is the 
time of the marriage supper, old things are passed away. 
Those who are born in this time are Joyful, they are blessed 
while they live and blessed when they die, for they are in the 
first resurrection. All things in heaven and earth have been 
made subject to Christ, and the kingdom has come and there 
is peace on earth and good will among men, and the saints 
are all happy and victorious. The prayer ^^Thy will be done 
on earth" is answered. This is a condition we have now met 
with the seventh time, but under different symbolism, so that 
we failed to notice we were reading a fact seven times related, 
now under the symbol of "the First Eesurrection.^' 

1. We had this fact first in the Seals series, in which 
Christ, after He had opened the six labor seals, opened the 
Sabbatic, or seventh seal, and there was silence in heaven for 
about the space of half an hour. This is what we call the 
millennium, viewed as a rest to the new Creator; having 
finished His creative work, enters into His rest. 

2. The Trumpets, which represent the apostles as over- 
coming the world in six labor trumpets, sound the seventh 
or jubilee trumpet, and it is announced that "the kingdom of 
men is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." 
This shows the millennium, as where God reigns over the 
world through the apostles. 

3. The Holy Spirit, who raises the two dead witnesses to 
life from the dead, by which the new temple, the church, is 
ineasured, and raised up and opened, and out of which the 



OR. THE RIVEN VEIL. 339 

wicked are judged and the righteous rewarded, shows the mil- 
lennium as a restitution of order and justice, etc. 

4. The church, which began with such glory and had to 
struggle with the Dragon, comes to the end of her warfare by 
casting out the Dragon, pagan Rome, into the earth, and it is 
declared that "now is come the salvation and the power and 
kingdom of God and the authority of His Christ, for the 
accuser of our brethren is cast down." This is the millennium 
potentially or made possible. 

5. Christ acting seven parts as evangels and as negative to 
the seven seals and in judgments on them that dwell on the 
earth when He acts the last part. He gathers the vine of the 
earth and tramps it in the great wine-press of God's wrath 
without the city till the blood runs a sea in which horses can 
swim. This is the millennium in judgments as coming from 
Christ upon the wicked. 

6. The avengers are the apostles carrying the negative to 
the trumpets by pouring out seven bowls of wrath of God 
in judgments on the wicked and the last of these ends with 
a mighty earthquake which shows the nations of the earth 
fallen and the end declared in the solemn words "It is done."^ 
This also shows the millennium, as we call it, on its judgment 
side and as being visited upon the world through the apostles 
or the saints and brought to an end. 

7. But now after this great result has been brought to 
view in harmony with the acts of the agencies respectively em- 
ployed and after the judgments have been visited from all these 
sources on the different classes of the wicked then we have 
all the heavenly powers acting in oi\e grand concert called the 
"First Resurrection,'' and this is the millennium as the tri- 
umph of saints and of the apostles and of the church and of 
Christ and of all the heavenly powers over all sinful powers. 
All who have not worshiped the beast nor his image and the 



340 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

souls under the altar with the word of God and the glory and 
power of God shall rise and reign, and the Devil, the beast, 
the dragon, the false prophet, the wicked, and filthy, etc., shall 
be crucified, shall be trodden in the wine-press, shall be slain 
upon the battlefield, shall be crushed with hailstones, shall 
be cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, etc. 
So we have the millennium expressed on its positive and its 
negative sides and in symbols that present it in harmony with 
the agencies and methods by which it is said to come about. 
This is the first resurrection; it is the Marriage of the I^amb, 
the New Jerusalem, the Fruition, viewed in its different phases 
and relations. Notice we are not concerned with any general 
doctrine of the resurrection, but only what this Apocalypse 
teaches. 

Reproach and subjection are removed. The saints are vin- 
dicated; they live and reign with Christ; the souls from under 
the altar proclaim a loud amen (xvi, 7). Thrones are set and 
the saints sit upon them; they now reign with their Lord. 
None of the perplexing questions, such as "Will the living 
saints be changed to immortal bodies, and will they cease to 
marry and propagate their species?^' "Will resurrected saints 
dwell among the mortals, and will those who die have an 
immediate resurrection, and will the wicked continue to prop- 
agate?" are answered. All these and other perplexing ques- 
tions rise from the mistaken notion that John is speaking of 
the raising of the body from the grave. It is a resurrection 
in which the living, the dead, and those to be born shall par- 
ticipate described under many symbols, as the kingdom, mar- 
riage supper, etc. 

And when the thousand years are finished Satan shall be loosed 
out of his prison and shall come forth to deceive the nations which 
are in the four quarters of the earth. Gog and Magog to gather 
them together to the war the number of whom is as the sand 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 3il 

of the sea and they went up over the earth and compassed the camp 
of the saints about and the beloved city and fire came down out of 
heaven and devoured them and the devil that deceived them was 
cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast 
and the false prophet and they shall be tormented day and night 
forever and ever. 

Here is another struggle on the earth after the thousand 
years of Christian snpremacy. Ezekiel told of a day when 
Israel^ having dwelt safely in the land bronght back with the 
sword, shall again be invaded, the enemy saying, "I Avill go 
np to the land of iinwalled villages; I will go to them that 
are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without 
walls and having neither bars nor gates to take spoil,'^ etc. 
(Ezek. xxxvii, 11). Ah, they are not all driven out. The 
wicked we have seen all the way, and they are still in the 
earth. For a long time they have been outwardly subject to 
the kingdom of heaven, but now they make one more effort to 
again corrupt the earth and are again and forever defeated. 
Christ has already brought about many changes. We have 
traced the limitations He placed on the world powers and the 
harlot and we see Him still rising. The ownership of wives 
by their husbands, so that they could even sell or kill them 
at will, and the ownership of children as property was allowed 
not very far in the past among advanced nations. The enslave- 
ment of tribes of men and their use as chattels, to be worked 
as brutes or to be killed for sport. Hostility toward stran- 
gers and the consequent difficulty of travel in alien lands, 
brutal punishments by prison and by torture, and ordeal, as 
means of extorting testimony; piracy that not long ago covered 
the seas, and persecution for conscience' sake till lately preva- 
lent! How these and many other beastly forms of inhuman- 
ity have been passing away wherever the light of God's word 
has gone. A feeling of universal sympathy is rising all over 



342 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

the world and under Christian missions mnst continue to raise 
the standard of righteousness. 

The great counterpart is here carried out to the fulL As 
Christ has a millennium, so the adversary must have a coun- 
ter-millennium, but it is in an inverse ratio of continuance, 
for he is let out of prison for "a little while" only, and then 
destroyed forever. Christ had reigned for a little time in His 
miniature kingdom, beginning at Jerusalem, and then came 
the long reign of darkness; but He is at this time rising to 
the ascendant and is sealing the great multitude of saints and 
He will have a long reign, called a thousand years, and then 
Satan shall try again and shall go down to rise no more. 

On Christ's side here is a great climax and on Satan's side 
a great anti-climax. The conditions are reversed and Christ 
is become in truth the Euler of the kings of the earth. A 
little while I am with you, was true of His personal absence 
and also true of His church, v/hich should go down, like its 
Lord, and rise again in the greater second church. How deep 
and mystic are all the relations of all these parts and elements 
connected with Christ! They marshal about Him as on the 
wide field of battle, as all the clouds that spread over the sky 
move to the center of the storm. 

THE GREAT WHITE THRONE. 

And I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it from 
whose face the heaven and the earth fled away and there was no 
place found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small 
standing before the throne, and books were opened and another 
book which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of the 
things which were written in the books according to their works. 
And the sea gave up the dead which are in it, and death and hades 
gave up the dead which were in them and they were judged every 
man according to his works and death and hades were cast into the 
lake of lire. This is the second death even the lake of fire, and if 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 343 

any man was not found written in the book of life he was cast into 
the lake of fire. 

There is a universality and a finality to this lesson not 
hitherto found in this book. This is the final Judgment^ and 
it includes all classes. There are two kinds of books and two 
classes — the great and the small — and they come from death 
and Hades; and "every man according to his works^' shows 
a final and eternal separation. The second death is the lake of 
fire. Into that lake the Dragon and the beast and the false 
prophet precede their followers, w^ho are cast into it also, 
even as the saints go into their Father's house, where Christ 
has preceded to prepare mansions for them. We read in the 
preceding chapter that "they twain were cast into the lake 
of fire and that the rest are killed with the sword of Him that 
sat upon the horse." 

This is retaliation in kind. The dragon was wroth with the 
remnant of the woman's seed; he went away to make war 
with the rest of her seed which keep the commandments of 
God after he had destroyed the church. So Christ now pursues 
the remnant of the wicked with the sword of His mouth. 
Thus these judgments, which at first confuse us with the 
"when" and the "where," as though they were independent, 
are found to be different phases of the same general fact, all 
having reference as counterpoint to some part in the main story. 
We follow the same method in these judgments that we do 
in the other parts, observing that what seems strange and 
unrelated is, in fact, very closely related either by affinity with 
some other member, as in the cryptograph or by a counteract 
on the opposing side. 

The punishments form a chapter to themselves worthy our 
attention. The locust plague of the fifth trumpet and the 
military plague of the sixth and the crucifixion of the sixth 
seal and the treading of the wine-press and all the seven last 



3U MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

plagues of the bowls of wratli were visited upon the people of 
the world in general, while a special judgment is visited upon 
the harlot, and the special judgments on Satan and the beast 
and false prophet are reserved for the last. The different 
figures under which these are expressed have their proper cor- 
relations in the different points under which the same general 
fact is viewed. Killing with the two-edged sword, cutting 
down with a sickle and treading down the wine-press, and the 
sea of blood that flowed from it, and sealing up of Satan in 
the pit of the abyss and casting him into the lake of fire and 
brimstone are all different w^ays of expressing the same fact 
that Christ, as though in His own person, would execute these 
judgments on the anti-christ, the adversary. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 345 

CHAPTEE XXI. 
Revelation XXI. 
THE PROMISES. 

Every one who lias read this book must have experienced 
a feeling of vagueness and the wish that its lessons might be 
brought more within the ordinary method for identifying and 
realizing truth. But over against this there have been coun- 
tervailing advantages in heights and intensities of expression 
which the heaven above and the earth and the under world 
have been employed in giving effect. The vagueness most felt 
at the start arises from the very unlooked-for method of dis- 
posing of the materials with which it deals, and yet we show 
that it all contributes to the main proposition, "I am the 
Alpha and the Omega/"' and the divisions for treatment follow 
His associate powers, the apostles, the Holy Spirit, and the 
churches, in their own order. Upon His own part there is no 
other scripture that so truly makes one feel that Christ is speak- 
ing to him so closely and personally, almost calling Him by 
name. 

In the seven letters there is a minuteness of care and pains- 
taking and a delicacy and certainty of touch upon the heart 
nowhere else to be found. Christ in these letters makes the 
most personal and pointed allusions. To the church at Ephesus 
He said: 

"I know thy works and thy toil and patience and that thou 
canst not bear evil men and didst try them that call them- 
selves apostles and did find them false.^^ To another at 
Smyrna He said: "I know thy tribulation and poverty and 
the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not. 



346 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

but are of the synagogue of Satan." To those at Pergamos: 
"1 know where thou dwellest^ even where Satan's seat is^ and 
didst not deny My name even in the days of Antipas, My wit- 
ness^ My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan 
dwelleth." At Thyatira: "I know thy works and thy love 
and ministry and patience and that thy last works are more 
than the first." At Sardis: "I know thy works, that thou 
hast a name, that thou livest and thou art dead." "Behold, 
I have set before thee a door opened which none can shut, 
that thou hast a little power and didst keep My word and didst 
not deny My name." "I know thy works, that thou art neither 
cold nor hot." 

The liveliest and most intense interest is seen in all these 
letters for the individual. The mention of Jezebel the wicked 
and of Antipas the faithful and the few names of Sardis which 
had not defiled their garments even where the church was 
about to die. How quick and piercing are these appeals to 
the heart, and even more so are the promises, which are all 
given to the individuals. "To him that overcometh I will 
give to eat of the tree of life." "To him will I give to eat 
of the hidden manna and will give him a white stone, and 
on the stone a new name written which no one knoweth but 
he that receiveth it." "To him that overcometh I will give 
him the morning star." "I will make him a pillar in the 
temple of My God." "I will write upon him the name of My 
God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, 
which cometh down out of heaven from God, and Mine own 
new name." "I will give to him to sit down with Me on My 
throne, even as I also overcame and sat down on My Father^s 
throne." "He shall inherit all things." 

Such promises as these have led many a heart to desire to 
"read the words of the prophecy of this book." The N'ew 
Jerusalem of which we are about to read has the same detail 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 347 

and minuteness of interest that we met in tlie seven letters, 
All the references to the saints, the promises and the descrip- 
tions are marked by painstaking care and tender refinement 
of feeling. Christ knows them each. He seals them with the 
seal of the living God on their foreheads, and writes His own 
name and His Father's name, and the name of the city of His 
God upon them; and writes their names in His own book of 
life and presents each one a signet, a white gem stone, in 
which He writes a new name, one that can never tarnish, and 
"a name which none can ever know but he that receiveth it;" 
that is, His own personality and personal experience, which is 
unlike all others, being His personal knowledge and sweet 
reminiscence — to be His own forever, a sweet memorial and per- 
sonal keepsake. He numbers them that none may be lost; He 
walks with them in white raiment and communes with them 
by the way; He sits with them on His own and His Father's 
throne, and gives them His rod of judgment over the nations 
to smite them as a potter's vessels are broken to shivers. Out 
of great tribulation they come to the marriage supper of the 
Lamb, and to eat the hidden manna, and to eat of the tree 
of life in the paradise of God. Against Him the second death 
has no power nor shall he ever again go out from the presence 
and glory of God. He is a raptured member of the happy 
throng of singing virgins upon the lovely Mount Zion, who 
"sing the new song of Moses and the Lamb," a song^jthat none 
but the one hundred and forty-four thousand can ever learn, 
for no other can know the joys of salvation, a happy victor 
triumphant over sin and over death and over the grave. Over 
all enemies and at peace with the Lamb of God forever and 
ever. 

The holy dreams of the young convert so soon and so often 
plunged into the cold realities of this lower selfish world; the 
wing of hope so often cut by the darts of the wicked, his pure 



348 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

love as from a fountain so soon resisted; all this, and more, 
Christ remembers and knows and bids him watch and pray and 
promises him all His own treasures and calls him blessed. 
Through all repulses the faithful servant follows the heavenly 
vision of faith that leads on its quenchless, its boundless life, 
as from a spring of life within that flows on to eternal life. 
Above all the fiery darts of the wicked above the plane where 
chilling rebuffs may strike He walks in Godlike attire. He 
rises to heights malice cannot reach and so overcomes, to sit 
down with his Lord and to walk with Him in white and to 
sing with Him the new song. Such a rich legacy of promise 
exceeds all fable, transcends imagination itself. N"ot the dream 
of childhood's flowing buoyancy on its onward wing can touch 
the upward limit of its glory. 

That bright and morning star that draws our attention from 
all the constellations by its singular beauty He promises to 
him that overcometh, and a mansion above the glory of the 
sky. Clothed in a priceless white garment, the gift of heaven, 
a garment white as snow, every thread of which is woven in 
love's sacrifices untarnishable forever, and a crown of gold for 
his head that becomes a victor over sin and Satan, shall be 
his own evermore. 

And above this whole wicked earth as its conqueror, and 
owning all the heavens as freely as though he were the single 
victor, he reigns a priest and a king unto God like his Im- 
manuel. In never-ending joy his harp and new song shall be 
heard in all the happy fields and gardens of the Lord amid 
everlasting balm and beauty. The marks and scars of his 
tribulation shall be his passport to all the distant worlds where 
one star differs from another. He wears the glory of God 
upon his heart, he walks above the hilltops and sees and knows 
that it is his own self, remembers every experience of life, and 
knows it is indeed himself now, with everything taken from 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 349 

liim tliat can give him trouble or pain, every infirmity gone, 
and deatli itself removed forever from his fears. 

Upon liis passport is written the name of his Father and 
of the Lamb, to pass unchallenged amid all the ontposts of 
heavenly space, where he goes unhindered and unharmed. 
God's seal is upon him so he cannot go astray nor ever be lost 
from His presence. He shall be trusted as faithful, shall be 
a pillar in the temple of my God. He shall not hunger nor 
grope in the dark, nor shall heat strike him nor darkness ever 
overtake him. He is already saved and his eternal life begun 
here below. He follows the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. He 
watches all the great matters of dispute among men and looks 
to see which side his Master would stand on and there firmly 
takes his place. He is called wise and is measured by the 
golden reed of truth and he measures all his duties by the 
measure of his Master's will. 

All these promises come from the great Overcomer, Avho is 
called "The Faithful and the True Witness.^^ Faithful en- 
deavorer, thou mayest become an overcomer. Thou shalt be 
contented in sorrow, at home in exile, happy in misery, rich 
when poor. Above the reach of envy and of scorn and malice 
there steadily hold on thy faithful way, for He is faithful who 
said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'' 

THE WICKED. 

In the description of the Xew Jerusalem, to be found in 
the two chapters that close the book, we notice the same pains- 
taking and minuteness of description of its parts and qualities 
that we have seen so unvaryingly from the first. All that per- 
tains to the saints is indicative of care and thought. How 
sustained is this multiple allegory of God's last precious word. 
Xot only is this to be seen in the uniform particitlarity with 
vrhich the saints and all that pertains to them are described and 



350 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

promised^ but also by the way in which the wicked are con- 
stantly referred to as coarse and fickle and undiscriminating^ 
and all that pertains to them is waste and loss and without 
measure. They are always alluded to in signs of apostasy and 
sin^ as four or some multiple of four^ or as six^ or as sixteen 
hundred furlongs of blood, etc. We are about to read that 
"the fearful and unbelicAdng, and abominable, and murderers, 
and fornicators, and sorcerers, and liars shall have their part in 
the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second, 
death. 

We have found them all the Avay as perverters, as cruel and 
hard and unrepentant, and in the last chapter the last glimpse 
we get of them is in the words that close their doom for- 
ever. "He that is unrighteous let him be unrighteous still, 
and he that is filthy let him be filthy still.'^ At Ephesus, where 
it is supposed that John himself had preached, there were pre- 
tenders to the apostleship who were proven liars. At Smyrna 
there were servants of the Devil who were about to cast the 
saints into prison, and at Pergamos Satan had a throne, where 
Antipas My faithful one was killed, and there, too, were the 
Balaamites, such as taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block, 
etc. Their equestrian sign is a red horse, whose rider has a 
great sword given to him to take peace from the earth. They 
make merchandise of heavenly things, as shown in the black 
horse. They raise up brutal rulers over themselves and they 
tread down the Holy City under their feet. When they assume 
to be religious they come forth as locusts from the pit and 
devour and destroy and corrupt the earth. They make war 
on the two witnesses and kill them and expose their dead 
bodies in their streets and rejoice and send gifts one to an- 
other that they cannot torment them any more. They receive 
a trade mark in their hand or on their forehead, that they 
may carry on commerce in religious frauds. They are left 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 35l 

without the temple and are not measured when it is building. 
They worship the dragon for giving his power to the beast and 
then worship the beast for receiying it; and then they are 
ordered to make an image to the beast and they obey the order 
and then worship it, the work of their own hands. 

In their world life they are numbered four and in the 
source of their evil power they are numbered six. They are 
the servants of the Devil and the dragon, who seeks to destroy 
the child of the holy woman. They worship the harlot and 
are made drunk on her cup of abominations and they mourn 
over her desolations. They wonder and are disappointed when 
the beast power is no more and are amazed to see the hills 
and mountains moved forever from their sight and call upon 
the hills and rocks to fall upon them. They are frightened 
when the two witnesses, which they killed, rise from the dead, 
and they run and hide away in the caves and among the rocks 
when they see Him that sits upon the terrible high throne and 
the face of the offended Lamb. Their sins cleave together 
and they are the earth vine that is gathered and taken with- 
out the city to be trodden in the wine-press of God's wrath, 
and they gnaw their tongues with agony and curse God for 
their pains, and they are overthrown in battle and their own 
carcasses and those of their leaders, and kings, and generals 
are the food for buzzards, and they are left outside the city of 
the Xew Jerusalem with dogs and sorcerers, and they remain 
coarse and filthy and are cast into the lake of fire and brim- 
stone, which is the second death. They remain proud, self- 
willed and impenitent to the end. Short-sighted, ungrateful 
and unholy they \nll continue to be till the second death shall 
separate them forever from God and His saints.. How sus- 
tained is this story to the end! 

Satan, the instigator of all sin, receives from John a de- 
scription that leaves him without a redeeming trait. Milton 



352 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

and Dante and others^ who have tried to give a true likeness 
of the Devil in their works made the mistake to leave some 
trace of respectability in his character^ but when John is done 
with him he is utterly loathsome and vile, without a trai-t to 
admire. He drags down the stars with his tail, he issues water 
out of his mouth after the absconding woman, and he has seven 
heads and ten horns bearing crowns, and he blasphemes God 
and issues from his mouth three unclean spirits like frogs, 
which go into all the earth to rally the world kings to make 
battle against God at the last day. His doom is to be cast 
into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, where also 
are the beast and false prophet, doomed forever and ever. 

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven 
and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. And 
I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I 
heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle 
of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be 
his p«)ples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: 
and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall 
be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, 
any more: the first things are passed away. And he that sitteth 
on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith. 
Write: for these words are faithful and true. And he said unto me, 
They are come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the begin- 
ning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the foun- 
tain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit 
these things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But 
for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, 
and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part 
shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is 
the second death. 

And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, 
who were laden with the seven last plagues; and he spake with me 
saying. Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the 
Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 353 

and liigh, and shewed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out 
of heaven from God, having the glory of God: her light was like 
unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as 
crystal: having a wall great and high; having twelve gates, and at 
the gates twelve angels; and names written thereon, which are the 
names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: on the east 
were three gates; and on the north three gates; and on the south 
three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city 
had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve 
apostles of the Lamb. And he that spake with me had for a meas- 
ure a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and 
the wall thereof. And the city lieth four square, and the length 
thereof is as great as the breadth: and he measured the city with 
the reed, twelve thousand furlongs: the length and the breadth 
and the height thereof are equal. And he measured the wall there- 
of, a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of 
a man, that is, of an angel. And the building of the wall thereof 
was jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass. The 
foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner 
of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, 
sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the 
fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; 
the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; 
the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve 
gates were twelve pearls; each one of the several gates was 
of one pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, as 
it were transparent glass, and I saw no temple therein; for the Lord 
God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof. And the 
city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: 
for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the 
Lamb. And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and 
the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates 
thereof shall no wise be shut by day (for there shall be no night 
there) : and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the na- 
tions into it: and there shall in no wise enter into it anything un- 
clean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they 
which are written in the Lamb's book of life. 



23 



354 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 



CHAPTEK XXII. 
' Eevelation XXII. 

And he shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, 
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst 
of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that 
was the tree of life, bearing twelve m^anner of fruits, yielding its 
fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing 
of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more: and the 
throne of God and of the Lam.b shall be therein: and his servants 
shall do him service; and they shall see his face; and his name 
shall be on their foreheads: And there shall be night no more; 
and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord 
God shall give them light: and they shall reign forever and ever. 

And he said unto me, These words are faithful and true: and the 
Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to shew 
unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass. And 
behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the 
prophecy of this book. 

And I, John, am he that heard and saw these things. And when 
I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel 
which shewed me these things. And he saith unto me. See thou do 
it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren the 
prophets, and with them which keep the words of this book: wor- 
ship God. 

And he saith unto me, Seal not up the words of the prophecy of 
this book; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous, let him 
do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made 
filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness 
still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, I 
come quickly; and my reward is with me, to render to each man ac- 
cording as his work is. I am the Alpha and the Omego, the first and 
the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they that wash 
their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, 
and may enter in by the gates into the city. Without are the dogs, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 355 

and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the 
idolators, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie. 

I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things 
for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the 
bright, the morning star. 

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, 
let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he that 
will, let him take the water of life freely. 

I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy 
of this book. If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto 
him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man 
shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God 
shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy 
city, which are written in this book. 

He which testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. 
Amen: come, Lord Jesus. 

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the saints. Amen. 

The ends of the great tragedy of man come together. The 
river, that flowed out from the Eden of God's presence and 
through the garden out toward the four corners of the earthy 
now flows back to water the garden and to gladden the city of 
our God, the New Jerusalem. "The kings of the earth do 
bring their glory into it and the nations shall walk in the midst 
of the light thereof.'^ The city is a cube symbol of perfection. 

Here again are the two trees in the garden of the Lord, one 
on either side of the river, but are now both trees of life, and 
they bear twelve manner of fruit and bear their fruit every 
month. There is no longer any tree of death, for death is no 
more. God says, "Behold, I make all things new." And 
He said unto me — "these words are faithful and true, and the 
Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent His angel to show 
to His servants the things which must shortly come to pass; 
and Behold, I come quickly to render to every man as his 
work is.'' 

To one who has long been settled in the thought of a sudden 



356 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

end of the things of time, and the income of the eternal order 
there comes a feeling of disappointment in not finding at the 
end that line sharply and definitely drawn. 

The great white throne and the general judgment (xx^ 10) 
seem to mark that line, and yet that impression is partly effaced 
by the description which follows of the New Jerusalem which 
comes down from God out of heaven and rests upon the top 
of a great mountain and is described in the symbols of the 
earth as having a river and street and walls and stones, etc. 

It must constantly be remembered that in following John's 
discourse we cannot in the first place always tell whether it is 
himself or his Master that is speaking — the distinction is not 
apparent. In his mind we also miss that distinction in our 
own between the life here and the life hereafter. With him "He 
that believeth hath eternal life now and here, and he that 
believeth not is now condemned." We have also noticed the 
same effacement of distinction between the church and heaven, 
for the saints here on earth suffering persecution are said to 
'^tabernacle in heaven,'' while the wicked "dwell," that is, settle 
down in the earth. 

Again, John nowhere draws a sharp line between the absent 
and the present saints, but holds them in one general com- 
pany and describes them in symbols and signs which belong 
to both worlds in common, so that the line between the here 
and the hereafter can not be found, and for this reason it is 
impossible to derive support to any over-refined eschatology. 
Even the word "sea," meaning the people, is neutral and does 
not of itself determine the character of the people when 
standing alone, but as we see it turbulent with the rage of 
human passion, then polluted with carcasses of the dead, then 
fireblent with the fire of the regeneration, and then crystalline, 
purified before the throne in the fruition. It is noticed that 
as he brings eternal life and joy into this life so he also car- 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 357 

ries suffering beyond deatli in the same manner, and shows 
lis the souls under the altar of those beheaded, crying "How 
long, Lord, till Thou avenge us/^ etc., and this is in har- 
mony with Christ's suffering persecution at the hands of Saul, 
even on His throne crying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
Me?'' and it adds deep meaning to those words that "God 
is long suffering to usward." Also we notice His promises and 
His retributions have this common property: They are given 
in signs that take no account of that gulf our minds have 
fixed between the things of time and the things of eternity. 
But between the two opposing forces and their allies the differ- 
ence is as between day and night and that antagonism persists 
till the awful doom is spoken, "Let- him that is filthy be filthy 
still." 

This method of treatment gives rise to a new and deep 
ethical feeling. But it was not to John alone that these lines 
were missing, but the characteristic of Christ after His resur- 
rection. Wlien Mary stood at the empty tomb weeping, a 
person whom she supposed to be the gardener spoke to her and 
said, "Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" and 
she said to Him, "H thou hast borne Him hence tell me where 
thou hast laid Him and I will take Him away." Then Jesus 
spoke her name, "Mary!" and she knew Him and said, "Eab- 
bonil" TMiere can we locate the mystery in this incident? The 
account of the two disciples going to Emmaus on the same day 
is in point. It is said that Jesus overtook them and asked 
them why they were sadly communing, and they supposed He 
was a stranger in Jerusalem, that He had not heard of these 
things, and that He began to open to them the scriptures 
concerning Himself, and that He upbraided them for their 
hardness of heart and unbelief in not believing the scriptures 
that He must rise from the dead, and it was not till they had 
ended their journey and had gone into the house and had re- 



358 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

clinecl at meat and He had given thanks that they knew Him, 
The rejected paragraph^ in Mark xvi, 12, says/ "He changed 
His form," and Luke, "that their eyes were withholden." In 
what this change consisted and on which side does not clearly 
appear. So when the disciples were assembled within closed 
doors Christ appeared and said to them, "Handle Me and 
see that it is not a spirit, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones 
as ye see Me have." How He came within the range of their 
identification and how He passed out of it does not appear. 
At the early dawn at the sea of Tiberius, when the disciples 
had been fruitlessly fishing all night, a voice was heard from 
the shore asking if they had taken anything and they answered, 
nothing, and He said, "Cast your net on the right and ye shall 
find." Not till they had cast the net and felt the throbbing 
net alive with fish did John discern and proclaim "It is the 
Lord." For forty days after His resurrection Christ hovered 
over this chasm, this borderland between two worlds, where 
we have fixed a gulf, being seen of many, and then ascended 
to heaven wrapped in a cloud and disappeared from their sight, 
having annexed two worlds by the rending of the veil that 
is His flesh upon the cross, • leaving a borderland an enchanted 
twilight in which He dwelleth; in which we see Him walking 
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks and laying His 
right hand upon the exiled saint, saying, "Fear not." It is in 
this borderland we find room for prayer, for sweet meditation, 
for cheerful sacrifice. It was in this twilight I sought and 
found the rapt seer of Patmos, the Bosom Disciple of Christ, 
when my Emily was torn from me by an evil power that bound 
her in delusions of an awful hell of tormenting fiends, till I 
had suffered tribulation three years and a half and had fol- 
lowed the seer to the end of his vision. In this borderland 
of mystery is found the soul's union with God and out of this 
all true evangelization must proceed. In this mystic middle 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 359 

land John stood to write this Greater Gospel for this greater 
age and no one may expect to snccessfnlly meet its rational- 
ism and materialism who does not know how the "great mys- 
tery of Godliness" and the mysterious union of the saved with 
their Savior. Divest your preaching of this power and your 
message falls dead. "Behold_, I am alive forever more, and My 
reward is with Me." 

AUTHENTICITY. 

There has never been any serious question of the authen- 
ticity of the Apocalypse. Some of the evidences of its Johan- 
ine authorship are here given, based on John^s other writings: 

1. The author four times calls himself John and "I, John, 
your brother." 

2. He is at more pains to give the Hebrew names of places 
than any other New Testament writer: John v, 2, "Now, 
there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate, which is called in the 
Hebrew Bethesda;" xix, 13, "a place called the Pavement, but 
in Hebrew Gabbatha;" xix, 17, "Into a place of a skull, which 
is in Hebrew called Golgotha;" Rev. ix, 11, "His name in 
Hebrew is Abaddon;" Rev. xvi, 16, "Into a place which is 
called in Hebrew Harmageddon." 

3. His deeper spiritual discernment of the acts and sayings 
of Christ discernible everywhere in his writings. 

4. His lack of shading in his characters. He sees all per- 
sons as white or black, as Christian or devilish. He tells us 
that Judas was a devil and a traitor. He alone tells us Cain's 
motive in killing his brother and that he who hates his brother 
is a murderer. He tells us that Christ is altogether righteous 
"and in Him is no darkness at all," and he leaves a pen picture 
of Satan without a trait to respect, but one of loathing and 
disgust only. 

5. He alone told us about the mysterious words of Christ, 
that he would "be a little while with them and then absent, 



360 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

etc/' This appears in the parody of the beast who has one head 
put to death and it revives, and so He is present and absent and 
returns, etc. 

6. The words of Christ to Peter, "Vfhat is it to thee if he 
tarry till I come?" and His after appearing to him in Patmos 
to fulfill this implied promise. 

7. His use of the Logos calling Christ the Word of God — • 
John i, 1, and Eev. xix, 13. 

8. A subcurrent of autobiography runs through both his 
great books. 

9. Tradition is strongly in favor of John's authorship.* 

DATE. 

Perhaps Canon Farrar has done more to influence current 
opinion toward the earlier date for the Apocalypse than any 
other single person. The point he seems to gain by holding this 
earlier date is a bitterly controversial one, that is to divert the 
odium from the papacy by showing these prophecies all ful- 
filled in the Neronian persecution, thus defending what he calls 
"A sister church," meaning, rather, the "Mother church." 

He says even "the most reverent inquiries have pronounced 
the Apocalypse to be unintelligible," and yet upon his unin- 
telligible interpretation he chiefly founds his arguments for 
its earlier date. He pronounces it the most intensely Jewish 

* "Unless we accuse the author of deliberate falsification, this verse 
is decisive as to authorship, though not, of course, excluding such 
redaction of earlier prophesies. It should be needless to add that 
objections drawn from the extreme dissimilarity in style and tem- 
perament of the annonymous gospel and epistles after the fashion 
of Dionysius, invert the true state of the case. To use a different 
portrait from the gospel and epistles not known to have been attrib- 
uted to John before 170 A. D. to disprove the authenticity of Reve- 
lation is the inversion of logic." — B. W. Bacon, D. D, 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 361 

of all the books of the N'ew Testament and erroneously cites 
xi^ 2, to show that the old Jewish temple was still standing. 
He also cites chapter 13 as referring to the then reigning em- 
peror, both which, according to the interpretation given in 
this book, are very wide of the mark. Since he and most 
others with him give up the book as unintelligible, they have 
no right to base a theory of its date upon their own interpre,- 
tation or that of any one who has so reverently studied it with- 
out finding it understandable. But he frankly says that the 
chief obstacle to the acceptance of the true date arises from the 
authority of Irenaeus, who said, "It is not long since the vision 
was seen, but almost in our own generation toward the end of 
the reign of Domitian.^^ Jerome and Eusebeus both go to 
Irenaus for authority. 

But the scholarly dean thinks that Irenaus meant to say Nero 
and that he simply wrote the wrong name, a "lapsus calami," 
and he says that he has done so himself, and that Irenaus meant 
to write Nero instead of Domitian. But he rests his cause 
much upon the bad Greek of the Apocalypse, it being so un- 
grammatical and so full of solecisms as compared with John's 
gospel as would show it to have been written earlier when 
John was new at the Greek language. Now, we have not 
yet noticed a grammatical error in the Apocalypse that did not 
strengthen the sense by maintaining the unity of the subject- 
matter. As to the solecisms, how can those pronounce upon 
them who declare the book unintelligible after the reverent 
inquiries have failed to give any intelligence? This negative 
criticism is based on a comparison of the Greek of the Apoca- 
lypse with the Greek of the gospel and it has entirely too 
slender a foundation to weigh against the evidence of its latter 
authorship. But even on the ground of internal evidence there 



362 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

is a far higher reason for its later date than any flimsy theory 
about its grammar, solecisms, etc. 

1. There is an advance in the theology of the Apocalypse 
beyond any of John's other writings. If we take the Logos 
of his gospel, which is a distinct line in which John exceeds 
all others, we will find that his Apocalypse carries the concep- 
tion to still higher and greater extent, for, while his gospel 
co-ordinates Christ with the beginning, his Apocalypse goes 
further and co-ordinates His apostles with Him in the sign 
of creation and that the saints also have their names written 
in the book of life of Him slain from the foundation of the 
world. 

2., It would seem strange also that so much matter about 
"the New Jerusalem" and "the hidden manna" and a great 
many other matters entirely new should be known to John 
and none of it get into his gospel if it had been written later, 
as the "Dean" labors in vain to show. 

3. It is a violent presumption to suppose that John, who 
makes so frequent mention of his close relations to Christ, 
could omit to allude to anything so important as the appear- 
ance of Christ to him in the isle of Patmos and his wondrous 
Eevelation that he should make no reference to it. He is at 
pains in his gospel to tell us what Christ said to Peter, "What 
is it to thee if he tarry till I come?" when the latter asked 
Him, "And what shall this man do?" John tells us that this 
saying of Christ went forth among the brethren that that dis- 
ciple should not die, etc., but John explains it that Christ 
did not mean to say he should not die, but only "What is it to 
thee if he tarry till I come?" 

Now, on the theory that the Revelation was written earlier 
than the gospel, how can we imagine John telling of these 
prophetic words of Christ which had created a mistaken and 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 363 

widely circulated rumor and yet forget to correct it by telling 
us that Christ had come to him and laid His hand upon him 
and spoken to him in Patmos? John was very sensitively alive 
to all the attentions he received from his Master, and such a 
manifestation as this, and such a deep experience as this, can 
hardly be imagined to entirely escape some sign or allusion 
in his gospel if it had been written later, and the more so when 
we think how his gospel is underlaid by his autobiography. 
But no one has attempted to show that any allusion to the 
Apocalypse can be found in his gospel. 

The positive testimony of Irenaeus as to the time has no 
external rebutting testimony of a serious nature, and the gram- 
matical errors and solecisms cannot stand for a. moment as 
argument against the manifest enlargement of thought found 
in the Eevelation or against John's well-known habit of show- 
ing his close relations to Christ as such^ that he reclined nearest 
to Him at supper, that he went into the court of the high 
priest with Him, that he stood at the cross and received the 
charge from his Lord to take Mary to his own home, and that 
he should outrun Peter and come first to the tomb, and that 
he should write that he had seen and had handled of the word 
of life, and yet should have entirely forgotten to allude to the 
Apocalypse or to let drop some of its more advanced thought 
in his gospel. 

4. It must also be noticed that John closed his gospel by 
clearly indicating the unfinished account he had given, "many 
other things did Jesus,'' etc., and also the remarkable fact 
that in two of his three letters he left them in an unfinished 
state. He says, "I have many things to write, but will not 
.write with ink and pen;" but he closes his Eevelation with the 
plagues of this book upon him who adds to or takes away 
from the words of its prophecy, closing it as a finished work. 



364 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

Higher criticism in making an exception of the single book of 
the Apocalypse to give it an earlier date than the traditional 
one has completely tripped itself. 

5. It is a fact of importance that John has nsed materials 
in the framing of the visions that are found in his gospel and 
that he draws heavily npon the materials "used by Luke in both 
his acts and gospel."^ 

THE TIME ELEMENT. 

The burning question with the first disciples, "When shall 
these things be?" continues an everpresent inquiry. Not only 
was it so to the living who listened to our Lord's discourse (Matt, 
xxiv.) and to the church near the close of the first century deeply 
possessed of the then current hope of His visible return, but we 
are told that the agonizing question was carried beyond the exe- 
cutioners' ax, and that the souls of the slain for the testimony of 
Jesus were crying from beneath the altar, "How long, oh Lord, 
merciful and true, till Thou avenge our blood on them that 
dwell upon the earth?" 

Christ's own answer to His disciples upon the Mount of Olives 
has not received any definite answer in a chronological way 
from the Eevelation. It never entertains the question from that 
point of view. 



* "Such being the indication of the internal evidence, we cannot 
regard it as presumptuous to ignore the fact that external evidence 
for the latter date (95 A. D.), and the apostolic origin of the book, 
is stronger than that of any other book in the New Testament. We 
recall the positive, explicit and uncontradicted statements of Justin 
(155 A. D.), and Irenaeus (180 A. D.), that this book was written 
by John the apostle, Irenaeus adding, "at the end of the reign of 
Domitian (95 A. D.), and we have the testimony of Andreus of 
Csesarea that Papius himself not only used the book, but bore 
testimony to its genuineness." — Bacon. 



OR, THE RIVEN VElL. 365 

Christ's manner of answering that question has been the 
same on three test occasions. First, that of the Mount of Olives, 
when His coming and the end of the world were directly raised 
by Himself, He referred them to certain signs, as that nation 
shall war against nation, ^^and the abomination of desolation 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, but of the day and hour 
knoweth no man, neither the angels, nor the son of man, but 
the Father only." But to illustrate the time He cites them to 
the fig tree and said, "When ye see the fig tree putting forth ye 
say that summ_er is nigh." 

A second crucial test was made after His resurrection, when 
He was about to ascend, and His disciples asked Him, "Lord, 
wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" 
and His reply was, "It is not for you to know the times or the 
seasons which the Father has put in His own power."' 

But both these questions were asked from a Jewish stand- 
point, and the answers lack pertinent bearing upon the ques- 
tion of His spiritual kingdom and final judgment. But the 
third crucial test comes with the times of Domitian's persecu- 
tions. The vision opens with, "Behold I He cometh with the 
clouds, and every eye shall see Him and all the tribes of the 
earth shall mourn over Him." 

This quotation from Daniel identifies his coming with his 
dominion over the kingdoms of men and in the time of the 
sixth trumpet he appears to John in vision and standing "with 
his right foot upon the sea and his left upon the earth;" he 
^^ifts his right hand to heaven" and swears that "when the 
seventh trumpet is about to sound that time shall be no more," 
and when the seventh trumpet sounds we find that "the king- 
doms of men have become the kingdom of God and His Christ," 
and the dead are judged, etc. This is not chronology. It is the 
measure of time by trumpets and the trumpet times must be 



366 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

discerned as in the case of seeing the fig tree put forth; that is, 
by the characteristics of the times as respects the kingdom of 
God all nations, tribes, etc., and quite different from that early 
thought of the disciples as to its imminence. 

The difficulty with studying the time problem is enhanced in 
John's writings by his extreme synthetic conception, for with 
him heaven is here now, and we have eternal life here, and judg- 
ments are going on now and condemnation is a present experi- 
ence and time and eternity are one indivisible whole. And yet 
nothing can be more positively declared than the ongoing of 
time in all his great series. 

While time is a whole, it has its characteristics as the drama 
moves forward, and as the two sides to the struggle between the 
worldly and heavenly powers move onward they are character- 
ized from two points of view, hence we are prepared to hear 
the Revelation time from these two points. Twice we have "The 
things which must shortly come to pass" (i: 1.22-6), twice we 
have "For the time is at hand" (1.3-22:10), twice we have "The 
things which must come to pass hereafter" (1:19-4.1), and twice 
we have "It is done" (16.17-21.6). 

Must shortly or speedily come to pass can not be construed 
as abridging the time till the kingdoms of men become the 
kingdom of God and the judgment of the wicked but as time 
that is now present and in process of events to be described. 
So the "time that is «at hand" is time that shall be no more 
when the seventh trumpet is about to sound, not till then. 
"The things which shall come to pass hereafter" must look to 
the on-going signs of progress for their fulfillment till at last 
he said, "It is done." There the end is declared to have actually 
come. 

The unity and solidarity of John's treatment are such that 
while characteristic differences can be clearly enough seen, there 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 367 

is never lost to his mind that God is ever present over all and 
in all, and that there are no arbitrary divisions in time nor any 
abysmal gulf except between right and wrong. Yet in his revela- 
tions of the great changes of time John breaks up the name 
of the Almighty into three words to express them. "He that Is 
and Was and Is To Come." 

I agree with Harnack that John knew perfectly well he was 
violating the rules of Greek grammar, but nothing short of 
that would have served his purpose. Those who deplore John's 
bad Greek should know that he had a purpose in at least a part 
of it. It is in exact accord with this triple division of the time 
that John was told to "write the things which are and the 
things that were and the things which shall come to pass 
hereafter." This holds the entire time in one general design of 
past, present and future. His manner of employing the past 
has already been described as the form for giving illustration 
to the future. It is in this method that creation time is used 
six days of labor and one of rest, and these lie at the base of 
the movement, and in the absence of all other signs might 
settle the fact of the progress of on-going time. By every 
symbol and circumstance these series of seven indicate the 
progress of events and the rising of the kingdom of heaven and 
of disaster into triumph. 

In the trumpets this is most conspicuous. While as stars in 
the Lord's right hand and as letter carriers, and again as voices 
of thunder the apostles are represented as acting the same office 
and at the same point of time they act different parts in the 
trumpets, so that we can see at least Peter and Matthias and 
Paul and John by the distinguishing parts which they acted, 
and both by the nature of the events and by their respective 
orders and places we note the advances in time. The bowls of 
wrath which exactly follow the trumpets in the objects upon 



36B MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

which they fall confirm the fact of their progress to the con- 
summation, so that the oath of the Lord Himself, taken in the 
time of the sixth trumpet, standing upon the sea and upon the 
earth, lifting His right hand to heaven, and by the heavens 
and the things therein, and the earth and the things therein, 
and the sea and the things which are therein, swearing that 
"when the seventh trumpet is about to sound then is finished the 
good tidings which He declared to His servants, the prophets, 
must be regarded as formal and final. 

The confusion about the time hitherto has not come from 
either the Seals or the Trumpets, nor from their complements 
the evangels and the bowls of wrath, but from two others — ^the 
Holy Spirit and the church (chs. 11 and 12), but these do not 
mark the progress of time by the series of sevens, but allude to 
general conditions. 

The two witnesses called the two prophets are in sackcloth 
1,260 days, and "their dead bodies lie in the street of the 
great city three days and a half, and then rise. The Church 
(the temple) shall be trodden down forty-two months and "she 
fled to the wilderness where she continues for 1,260 days, that is, 
a "time times and a half time." 

It is to be noticed that forty-two months and "a time times 
and a half time" describe the time of the suffering of the church 
and of the two witnesses, and as these are inclusive of all that 
pertains to the kingdom we have a time of reverses to the cause 
described elsewhere by a red horse, and as the sun and stars 
being eclipsed and as a city and temple trodden down and as 
the two witnesses being slain, killed by the beast, and lying in 
sackcloth. 

This is the period of disaster to the church and of triumph 
to the world powers. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 869 

These times bear upon their very face the symbol four. They 
are: 

1. Forty-two months. 

2. Three days and a half. 

3. Twelve hundred and sixty days. 

4. Time times and a half time. 

The same method is found in the sixth trumpet^ where we 
read that the "four angels" (world powers) had been prepared 
for — 

1. The hour. 

2. The day. 

3. The month and 

4. The year. 

The meaning, therefore, is to be found in the symbol four 
as four horses, four creatures, four corners of the earth, and 
four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, and a 
fourth part, etc., all having the same fact at base. The con- 
tinued use of "tribes, tongues, peoples and nations to express 
what either one of these words alone would express shows how 
closely John adheres to the symbol four, a fact that has troubled 
many of our scholastic brethren who accuse John of solecisms 
and tautology. 

There is no ground whatever for the shuffling of figures to 
make a day for a year and thus reduce forty-two months to days 
and then raise them to years, or for taking three days and a 
half or time times and a half time and raising them to years of 
"prophetic days," to be raised again to years of chronological 
measure. Numbers are not used in the Eevelation for their 
numeral values. We admit this the moment we say that three 



370 MYSTERY OP THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

days and a half mean some other numeral value not their own. 

It is claimed that these four times (the 1260 days, the 42 
months, the 3^ days, and time times and half time) express the 
same length of time. So much the clearer, then, that it is 
expressed in four ways to clearly give it the power of the 
symbol "four," as in ch. ix, 15, and so much less the excuse 
for juggling w^ith figures to uphold a theory of the time of 
end of the world and the coming of Christ. 

All these references to time in chs. xi and xii describe the 
fallen condition of the church, and when the same fact comes 
to be expressed on its positive side, that is, on the brute side, 
it is said concerning the' brute that killed the two witnesses 
"and there was given him authority to continue forty-two 
months" (xiii, 5). That is the same time the Holy City is to be 
trodden down. Now, as showing that this time refers to a gen- 
eral condition without any thought of measured time, this time 
of the beast is expressed as "a short time" (xii, 12), and again 
"as a little while" (xvii, 10), and this is also the very form of 
expression Christ uses in answer to the cry from "the souls be- 
neath the altar who ask "how long oh Lord till Thou avenge 
■Qs?" His answer is, "a little while." 

What have we to govern us in these uses of the times? We 
have the same guide we have had all the way. The restoration 
of the church is described under the form of the return of 
Israel from captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, and 
hence the use of forms which bring to mind Daniel and the 
famine of the word of God in the dark days of the prophet Elijah 
and their employment is in harmojiy with the genius of the 
work. 

What was the time referred to ? It was the time of the captiv- 
ity of the church to sin and brute power, and a time to be 
discerned as we would "discern the face of the heavens," or the 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 371 

fig tree changing by tlie returning of summer, but no chronology 
is attempted, just as we can discern Peter and Paul and John 
and Daniel and Elijah by their places and offices; that is, as we 
have seen, all the way from the beginning spiritual things are 
to be spiritually discerned by their spiritual relations to God 
the Almighty in Christ and the presence of His witnesses who, 
being dead, yet speak as though living. Our time revelations 
are not considered only in .a subordinate way for we are reckoned 
to be with God now or that He is with us now, wiping "the 
tears from our eyes,^^ "leading us to fountains of water of life.^' 

When John refers to Rome he explains it as "the great city 
which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our 
Lord was crucified." 

The double view in which these things are taken has confused 
hitherto, for at times w^e get glimpses of distinctions which are 
again eclipsed. The apostles appear three times in an indistin- 
guishable common office as stars in His hand, as messengers to 
the churches, and as voices of thunder, and then again they 
stand out so that we can see certain of them by their parts. AYe 
also see the seven churches in their several conditions, and then 
they melt into the common mass as one church, and the Holy 
Spirit in the same manner and even Christ does not appear in 
the first tableau of the millennium (ch. iv). 

Both numbers and measures are seen from the two-point 
vievv\ John heard the number of the saints as "a hundred and 
forty-four thousand," but when he himself came to see them it 
was a multitude that no man could number — some angel did it — 
and the measuring of the Xew Jerusalem, one hundred and forty- 
four cubits, is explained to be "the measure of man that of the 
angel. (Man's measure that is the angel's.) 

The two witnesses also are spoken of from two points of 
view. They are clad in sackcloth and are still prophesying 



372 MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN CLOTH; 

and living as to God, but as to the world they are dead, and need 
to be raised up. 

The church, too, wears this double aspect, "She fled into the 
wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God," from 
which He calls her afterward to come out as from Egypt and 
from Sodum and from Babylon she is not lost forever. But an- 
other view describes her as taking "the two wings of the great 
eagle and flying into the wilderness unto her own place, where 
the dragon ceased to pursue and turned upon her seed, "who 
keep the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." 

Here she is separate from the true and faithful and has a 
place "her own," where she is found later a scarlet, drunken, 
fallen creature riding the ten-horned beast. All this brings the 
main fact to view, that while the beast is in the ascendant the 
kingdom is in tribulation. In the attempt to raise these allus- 
ions of time into mathematical measurements there has been 
great divergence of views, as always where men work in the 
dark. The matter was never meant to be covered up in such a 
maze of conundrums. 

The time of the battle of Harmageddon, or of the war of Gog 
and Magog, is to be taken in the same way, that is, as we speak 
of a Waterloo or a Yorktown, and has no chronology. 

This Eevelation can not be read at all except it be by following 
the relation of shadow to substance, and what is spoken from 
the spiritual world where a thousand years are as a day. 

To miss these is to confound all manner of elements into a 
vapid and incoherent agnosticism fruitless and prejudicial to 
this great magazine of God's reserved wisdom for the last days. 
To discern them is to realize the blessing upon him "that reads 
the words of the prophesy of the book." 

Bules of Interpretation, pages 182 and 183. 



OR, THE RIVEN VEIL. 373 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 

Lemuel H. Martin's "Voice of the Seven Thunders" more 
strongly influenced me to a love for the Eevelation I had 
cherished from my boyhood, for he was able at places to see 
men walk as trees. Prof. William Mulligan, of Aberdeen, gave 
me a valuable suggestion. I am especially in debt to the 
goodness and sincerity of a kind friend and brother, who 
sustained my courage and refreshed my spirit in a trying season 
of sorrow three and a half years while studying this book, 
Charles Eckhart — a name I hope to find written in the Lamb's 
Book of Life. 



THE END. 



Die 30!^*^ 



DEC 30 1901 



1 COPY DEL TO CAT, OiV. 
DEC. 30 1901 



\!SV fS 



